


Justice Blooming Out Of Season

by crocodilepatronus



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, Multi, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1905651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocodilepatronus/pseuds/crocodilepatronus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>ahhh so this is one of the chapters i've been wanting to write since I first started thinking about this prequel so I'm exicted to finally write it. However it came out long so I've cut it into two parts. I think people comment less on long fics/chapters hehe....</p>
        </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Rob thought frequently that his life could’ve taken a very different turn and he could’ve been doing something very different than what he was doing now. He could’ve been on a successful British tv show, he thought. But, no, he was sitting outside of a Thai food restaurant in a muggy city waiting for a rendezvous with a crooked cop.

Rob was an actor. He thought he was pretty good. But he supposed there were lots of good actors out there. And they were all fighting to get a lucky break. He’d been on a soap opera for years but quit it in fear of typecasting.

 _What a joke_ , he thought now, bitterly. _Atleast I had work then_.

One feature length film which had done terribly, a few episodes of television, and a cocaine habit were the only things he had to show for the last two years of his life. And a high score on Robot Unicorn Attack.

He lived alone in a small and decidedly shitty apartment in the middle of the city where he could hear people selling drugs from his window (which had a lovely view of a brick wall from the neighboring building). He still had enough money to shop at Whole Foods but not quite enough to buy a bed that didn’t squeak or say, a car.

But that could all change. Because he’d got a job offer. Could make some real money. But it wasn’t exactly for acting.

His drug dealer had been the one to tell him about it. Two female cops with a lot of fingers in a lot of dirty pies in the city. And they needed some help of an unnamed nature. Well, Rob could be helpful. He’d said he was up for it. His drug dealer had turned the job down because he was trying to get **_out_** of illegal business. Rob accepted it because **_he_** was hoping to get **_in_** if it meant extra cash.

He’d not been given much information. He was meeting only one of the duo for a start and she had been supposed to be there 5 minutes ago. He wasn’t even given her real name. On the streets they called her the crocodile.

To Rob that sounded just a tad theatrical but no less intimidating.

The sun was beating down but a lot of people were mulling about. Respectable people with respectable jobs. Rob wondered if he stuck out like a sore thumb among them and hoped the person he was meeting would too. He looked down at the pavement and noticed as if for the first time his own shoes- which were bright red bordering on hot pink sneakers.

 _What the fuck_ … he thought vaguely, _who shows up to a secret meeting with a crooked cop while wearing pink trainers?_ Apparently Rob did.

He wasn’t even sure what he was doing. It seemed ridiculous that his life was turning into a hard boiled crime drama when what he should be doing was acting in one. He wasn’t cut out to be a drug dealer or a hit man so if that’s what the job was then no fucking way. He wasn’t even sure what he **_was_** rough enough to do for them but he figured she’d take one look at him anyway and decide he was useless. He wasn’t a criminal sort and he was more than a little nervous about exactly how evident that would be to this lady cop.

_That’s why you have to act, dummy. Be fucking cool. Like a geezer from a Guy Ritchie movie. It’ll be good practice and anything’s better than sitting on the couch all day._

He did a lot of that. In his tiny apartment. In his boxer shorts at 4 PM playing Robot Unicorn with all the lights out to save on the electric bill. He’d go jogging a lot and he’d been lucky enough to not get mugged or shanked so far. And he did read scripts and try out at auditions. But it wasn’t easy to succeed as an actor. He supposed he’d always known that but part of why he’d quit doing office work to act in the first place was because he wanted to make something exciting out of his life. Yet he was more bored than ever lately.

 _Doing drugs and agreeing to help shady coppers isn’t really an appropriate way to relieve boredom_ … his conscience supplied but he ignored it.

He was here so he was going for it.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone.” a voice said to his left.

“Uh- yeah.” he said without looking in their direction, eyes still scanning the crowd for some kind of squad car.

“I’m crocodile.”

He swung his head around at that.

Whatever apprehensions he’d had about his own outfit giving him a misleading impression were thrown out the window when he saw what she was wearing. It was an outfit entirely in black save for silver buckles and zippers. She had a black hoodie on underneath a black leather jacket, tight black pants tucked neatly into leather biker boots. Her face was pale and she blinked at him with a neutral expression from heavily kohled and shadowed eyes from underneath the hood of her sweatshirt.

 “Aren’t you hot in that?” the question was out of his mouth before he had time to think about it and how inappropriate it was for his first words to her, especially in this situation.

She took a drag off the cigarette she was holding and answered “Not really.” as if there had been nothing strange about his question at all.

Trying to collect his thoughts he paused and then asked, “Are you the person I’m supposed to be meeting with?”

“Yes.”

“… you’re a cop?”

“Yes.”

Her deadpan attitude was almost infuriating when he himself was sweating under the pressure. Were all drug deals this mad?

“Um… can I see some identification?”

She pulled a thin, wallet sized leather booklet from inside her hoodie and handed it to him. He opened it up. Sure enough it was a police ID with her face on it making a predictably sullen expression. He saw that her real name was Kate. He folded it and handed it back to her.

“You’re Rob.” her tone wasn’t asking but he nodded all the same.

“We can’t stay here. We should go someplace private.” she turned away from him and walked to the street where she flipped up the kickstand on a black Honda CB 350. She took one of the two helmets on the back and handed it to him while she put her own over her head, flipping the visor down before straddling the bike and revving it once.

Rob stood dumbly by the street corner, holding the helmet. The moment of truth. Did he jump into this crazy world? He put it over his head and sat astride the bike behind her.

“Hold on.” she warned him in a muffled shout over the sound of the growling engine. She was thin- he felt as if he could wrap his arms around her twice almost. The leather of her jacket was hot beneath his hands and against his chest as he pulled himself flush against her back.

She accelerated fast on the bike and soon they were moving at what felt like a supersonic speed. He wrapped his arms tighter around her tiny waist, holding on for dear life. Even from within the helmet the motorcycle’s roar was loud and as they moved the air flew by him. No wonder her outfit had looked hot to him- it was for riding the bike. The air was much colder when it was blowing on you from all directions.

She turned onto a narrow road and Rob saw in horror that they were headed towards a large moving truck at breakneck speed ( _Oh **fuck**_ ) and it seemed she had no intention of slowing down. In fact she sped up and he nearly saw his life flash before his eyes. _This is how I’m going to die. This is fucking it,_ he thought. At the last second right when it seemed the truck was only a few feet away, she jerked the handlebars of the bike to the side, forcing it with a deafening skidding noise at a 90 degree angle and shot down a side street, pulling it back at an equally hairpin like turn to adjust and continued on without breaking her speed. Rob’s heart was hammering in his chest. They pulled out of the sidestreet and for a split second the bike was nearly airborne as she raced over a speedbump and onto the main road.

She leaned forward, maneuvering the motorcycle easily around other cars and zipping through traffic until they were on an open road surrounded by trees.

Away from the dangers of the traffic it was actually nice. Almost uncomfortably exciting but fun all the same. _Like being on a rollercoaster_. Rob wondered if maybe he could get a motorbike sometime…

As they rode the sun set- fading from a light pink streaked with red to a deep violet, until it was a very dark indigo. The road was illuminted by the headbeam on her bike infront of them.

It felt like they were going off the map, he saw only sparse buildings pass. Even though it was a ride that took well under an hour. A half hour at most. She pulled the bike in a sharp turn down a gravel path and eased it to a stop, shutting off the engine. Rob pulled off the helmet, looking around as she threw out the kickstand. They were in a large cemetery.

He didn’t like this. He’d seen enough thrillers to know when the bad guy walks their victim out alone in the cemetery there’s usually a pre-dug grave there waiting for them. _I’m done for_ , he thought.

She pulled a flashlight that was strapped to the back of the bike off and flicked it on.

“C’mon.” she said briefly, walking ahead of him.

“Uh. Where are we going?” he asked, standing still.

“C’mon.” she repeated, not turning around or stopping. He swallowed but took a leap of faith and walked after her.

The flashlight’s beam reflected off some of the gravestones looking like bouncing ghost orbs following them through the cemetery as they walked.

In the very dim light he saw a stone wall that wrapped in the shape of a square in the center of the graveyard with a mounted sundial in it’s center. She stopped there and leaned back against the wall, her hips resting against it but her combat boot-clad feet kicked out in front of her. He stayed a few feet away in caution.

The young woman lit a cigarette, her face illuminating under the flame briefly. She puffed smoke leisurely without saying a word.

“Can I… have one of those?” he finally asked. He was sick of just shifting from foot to foot, too full of nervous energy to stay still.

She turned her head to look at him.

“You don’t smoke cigarettes. One of your characters does in a TV show but you don’t.” she told him calmly.

He was a little unnerved at being having this information about himself being recited back to him.

“Unless you lied about that.” she added, a quiet menace in her words.

“I didn’t **_lie_** about that.” he said, “I just…” he took a shaky breath, “I’ve never really done this before. I mean… I’ve obeyed the law most of my life. Except for a few stupid things but… I’m not really a criminal type, y’see.” he rambled on nervously, not sure why he was telling her all this. It only made him look vulnerable. _Good job with acting the part of a cool geezer_. “So I’m a bit anxious is all. Could use a smoke. Anyway I started smoking cigarettes recently.”

She blinked at him without reaction to his confession then pulled her pack of camels out, reaching her arm out to hand one to him. He accepted it gratefully but he didn’t have a light. She threw her arm out again, holding the flame in the air for him to lean down and light the end on. It seemed she was respecting the personal space boundary he’d set by standing away from her- she hadn’t even tried to inch closer to him once.

He took a few calming inhales, feeling his body starting to relax if only slightly.

“How did you know I don’t smoke cigarettes?” he asked, “Do you… know a lot about me?”

She exhaled in a jet infront of her face before answering.

“You’re 36 years old, an actor, from Greater Manchester, England. You’re the youngest of three children and your parents names are Jim and Anne. You studied business at Huddersfield and marketing at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. You have a business studies degree and marketing masters BA honors MSC but you never really used them.” she listed off in a clipped tone without looking at him.

Rob’s mouth had dropped open about halfway through and stayed that way.

“How do you…?”

“I did a little research when my partner mentioned you.” she tapped her cigarette, “You also have a parking ticket in the states. I expect you to pay for that in the next week.”

He blinked lamely at her.  She ground her cigarette against the stone sending out a shower of tiny sparks.

“Let’s talk business.” She flicked her eyes up to his. The moon had come out from behind a cloud and he could see her, paler even than she had been in daylight.

“The job we need you to do is extremely simple- even a monkey could do it. And you’ll get a lot of money.”

“Sounds like the job was made for me.” Rob said with a laugh. She didn’t crack a smile.

“We need you to help us move 100 kilos of cocaine from our evidence room to a warehouse without being noticed.”

Rob blinked at her.

“Um.”

“We can’t do it on our own without arousing suspicion because everyone knows what we look like and if we’re seen carrying a lot of shit out of the office and then a ton of coke goes missing, it will be obvious.”

Rob nodded slowly. “So… basically you just need me to move it for you.”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“And then you pay me and I don’t have to worry about distribution or any of that bollocks.”

“That’s right. Easiest job in the world.”

Rob pretended to think about it while he smoked.

“Alright.” he agreed with a smile. “I’m your man. Just tell me where to go and when.”

She pulled something from the pocket of her leather jacket and handed it to him. It was a cellphone.

“I’ve already got one thanks.” he said stupidly.

“Well now you have two. Don’t let your friends call you on this one. Me and my partner will contact you on this and give you all the information you need.”

“Oh.” he put it in his pocket. “Thanks, then.”

“If you mess this up for us in any way I swear to God I’ll beat the shit out of you.” she said conversationally.

“Right.” he said, smiling nervously.

She waited for him to finish his cigarette. He flicked his eyes between looking at her and looking at the ground. She was watching him like a hawk.

“Let’s go.” she said when he stamped his cigarette out against the wall.

They began to walk across the narrow street between the cemetery and the parked motorcycle. He heard a car coming. It seemed such a normal thing- headlights in the night. A passing car. Until the headlights were directly in front of them and suddenly he felt the younger woman’s body collide with great force against him, shoving him back several feet and knocking him to the ground as they narrowly avoided getting hit by the oncoming car. It halted and screeched to the side, stopping horizontal in the road. The doors opened. Rob was stunned- confused- but Croc leapt into action immediately, grabbed him by the wrist and yanking him to his feet, dragging him back toward the cemetery.

“What’s g-“ he started to say but was cut off by a burst of noise. The night had seemed so quiet only minutes ago, peaceful, like he and this cop were the only two people in the world. Now it erupted with the sound of gunfire.

He ran in the darkness blindly wherever the hand on his wrist led him.

Croc grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him behind a large gravestone.

The sound of gunshots was slightly muffled from behind it but he could barely see in the darkness. The moon had gone behind a cloud again. She shifted where she was sitting to peer around the gravestone into the darkness.

“Who are they?” Rob asked.

“Slaughterhouse’s men.” she said as if that would mean anything to him. She pulled a handgun from inside her leather jacket and loaded it, taking off the safety.

There were no noises from the other men but they hadn’t turned the car off- the engine still rumbled in the otherwise still air and the lights illuminated a strip of the grass. Croc peeked her head round the stone and put her arm out, shooting twice. He didn’t hear any men dropping dead or screams of anguish.  

“You have lousy aim for a cop.” he muttered breathlessly.

“I hit exactly what I wanted to hit- their tires. I don’t want them to escape.”

He looked round quickly and saw that the car was indeed sagging on two of it’s tires now.

“What the **_fuck_** are you talking about?! We **_want_** them to leave!” he whispered.

“I don’t.”

Croc held the gun next to her face with two hands and leaned slightly out from behind the grave.

“Come and get us, you cocksuckers!” she shouted, her voice echoing through the cemetery. There was a pause then three bangs of guns. One of them hit the gravestone they were hiding behind but didn’t go through.

There was rustling noises and someone shouted something unintelligible.

Croc pulled Rob closer to her and stood up, crouched infront of him like a human sheild.

A set of footsteps drew nearer and Croc flicked her flashlight on swinging it up into the face of the approacher- blinding him for a moment before she grabbed him by the wrist of his right hand, wrestling the gun out of his grip. But not before it fired several shots- three hit the ground, but one whizzed through the space between her arm and torso. All Rob was aware of was a flash of light, a bang, and then a sharp pain in his side.

 ** _Shit_** _\- did I just get shot?_ he wondered vaguely, feeling an ice cold panic pour through his body. He numbly put his hand to his side and felt warm liquid seeping through his t-shirt.

Crocodile threw one look to Rob over her shoulder before making a savage noise and tackling the other man to the ground, prying the gun free of him and straddling his chest. She raised her arm up in an arc over her head and brought the butt of the gun down on the man’s face with a loud, wet, thunk. She pistol whipped him about five times until he wasn’t even struggling underneath her anymore before she stood up and kneeled down next to Rob.

“I-I think I got shot.” he stammered incredulously.

“I know. Let me see.” she said in a clipped tone, lifting up the edge of his shirt. The flashlight had rolled away and it was pitch black once more.

He shivered when he felt her touch unexpectedly against his skin, fingers ghosting over his stomach and up his ribs until she found the place that made him hiss in pain. Her index finger ran gently around it, probing the wound lightly.

“It only grazed you. You’re fine.” she said softly.

“Not dying?” he squeaked.

A slight hint of a smile curved her lips. “Not dying.” she confirmed.

She looked up at him and even in the darkness he could see her eyes- lined heavily with black shadow and kohl. Her makeup looked like war paint to him now.

“Are you in shock? Can you move?”

He nodded.

“Good. Hold this. The safety is off. Don’t shoot anyone unless I tell you to.” she pressed her gun into his palm and curled his fingers around it for him.

“I’ve never fired a gun before.” he said, suddenly feeling very small and weak in a crazy world out of a movie.

“Ever fired a paintball gun? It’s the same thing just with different results.” she assured him. She moved over to the still twitching man she’d beat up and dragged him over to where Rob was sitting. “If things start to get really hairy then just use this guy as a human shield.”

Croc stood up from behind the grave and leveled the gun at one of the men, shooting twice before ducking down again. Rob took a deep breath through his nose and closed his eyes.

_This is real. This is actually your real fucking life._

He opened his eyes again and fumbled in the grass until he found the flashlight.

“Use this.” he handed it to her.

“Thanks.” she said turning it on and flashing it through the cemetery once. He scanned with his eyes where the light hit and pointed to where a thug in a hoodie was looking towards them and raising his gun.

“There!” he shouted. Croc’s eyes flicked in the direction he was pointing and pulled the trigger. The thug fell with a shout.

Rob couldn’t help but find himself grinning. There was so much adrenaline coursing through his body he couldn’t even feel any pain in his side.

“Two down- one to go!” he exclaimed with a woop of joy.

“Hold the flashlight and I’ll shoot.” she instructed. But there was no movement even after they looked round the cemetery several times.

“Okay I have to move. You can stay here if you like.” she said, stepping out from behind the grave.

“I’ll cover you.” he said, completing his dream of one day saying that in a badass situation. He switched off the flashlight and shoved it in his back pocket.

They walked slowly out toward the middle of the cemetery and toward the area they’d smoked before with the square made of stone. The sundial in the center glinted in the moonlight As they stepped toward it a head popped up from the other side and shot at them. They both ducked simultaneously behind the opposite stone wall.

“I feel like I’m in the wild west.” Rob said breathlessly, pressing his back against the wall.

“Welcome to America, bucko.” Croc said, placing the muzzle of the gun over the edge of the wall. She fired a shot in the direction of the other man. He fired a shot back.

She sighed.

“This is going nowhere. You stay here. Fire at him every few seconds. I’m going around” she tip toed away from him. Rob hesitantly levelled the gun over the edge of the wall and pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed against the stone wall loudly, spraying dust on the other end.

He didn’t have to shoot a second time before he heard a gunshot from the other wall and a male voice cry out. He stood up and walked over.

Croc had shot him in the hand and disarmed him effectively. The man was holding his hand where blood gushed from between his thumb and forefinger.

“Do you want to know who I work for?” he asked breathlessly, wincing as he looked down at the blood.

“I don’t give a shit.” she answered in monotone before swinging her arm back and bringing the butt of the gun down over his skull. He fell limp like  a rag doll.

Croc wiped her hands which were bloodied on the thug’s t-shirt until they were clean and turned to Rob.

“How’s the injury?”

“Don’t feel a thing.”

She nodded slowly and walked ahead of him back to her bike.

She stopped in front of it and turned to him once more. He almost let out a girlish yelp when she reached around his waist and grabbed his behind but it was only to retrieve the flashlight out of his back pocket. She flicked it and observed the blood stain on his shirt.

“You don’t look like you’re bleeding too bad… Do you feel dizzy?”

“Nah. Tougher than I look, me.” he said cheerfully. And he did feel cheerful. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this alive. She eyed him suspiciously.

“I just don’t want you fainting while we’re riding. I can handcuff you to the bike…”

“I’m fine- really.” he smiled, “Though you can still handcuff me if you’re into that.”

She tossed the spare helmet to him rather roughly and pulled herself onto the bike. They rode back to the city at breakneck speed once again and stopped in front of an apartment complex.

He pulled the helmet off as she did.

“I don’t want you going to the hospital just yet. If Slaughterhouse’s thugs regain conciousness by some miracle and call him he might have people waiting for someone to show up at the ER.” she explained, pulling a key out of her pocket and opening the beaten down wooden door. He followed her up a narrow flight of steps to another locked door and followed her into her apartment. She kicked the door shut behind them and didn’t turn on the lights. Just wrapped her boney fingers around his wrist and pulled him forward- adeptly maneuvering them around any furniture that might be there in the pitch dark. Rob noticed  she had a very purposeful walk- she took long strides…. She finally flicked a light on when they got to another door and she pulled him inside.

“Sit on the bed.” she commanded.

When he walked into her bedroom he felt a wave of familiarity. Like his room, she had a line of empty bottles and cans tossed underneath her bed and her nightstand was littered with half-eaten snacks and wrappers. Rob often threw his scripts onto the floor by his bed when his eyes got too heavy to continue reading at night and it seemed she did the same but with case files it appeared- there was a neat row of them along the side of her bed. One manilla folder had some ghastly photos falling out of it of a badly bruised woman on a mortuary slab. There was a poster on her wall of Sid Vicious and kicked off by the closet were a pile of combat boots and black converses.

Neither of them had rooms that looked like they had expected to end up there or that they expected to be there for very long.  

She opened the door to the adjoining bathroom and came out moments later with an armful of first aid paraphernalia which she dumped onto the floor unceremoniously.

“Take off your shirt.” she said, nonplussed.

He hesitated because of the way she was looking at him so intensely but did as he was told. When he stretched his arms over his head to pull the shirt off he felt a dull sting in his side and looking down he saw that there was a gash about half an inch thick on his side and 3 inches long.

“I guess I should consider myself lucky.” he started to say but very quickly she’d poured a bottle of rubbing alcohol on the wound making him yelp.

“Ow!” he snapped in protest, “A little warning!”

“Just shut up and take it, you girl…” she muttered, pressing a gauze over it. She didn’t have any tape so she stuck the bandage to him with bandaids- PacMan and Hello Kitty bandaids.

He couldn’t help but smile at them. “Those are cute.” he murmured.

“I have ones with skull and crossbones or skeletons on them but I don’t really think you’re hardcore enough to wear those.” she responded without looking up.

He frowned.

“I’m very hardcore. I’ve got a hardcore bullet wound to prove it now.” he said seriously. He saw the corners of her lips turn up momentarily and felt a sense of pride swell up in his chest. She gathered the alcohol, bandages, and bandaids from the floor and took them back into the bathroom.

“You should go to the hospital tomorrow.” her voice came from the bathroom, and then the sounds of her brushing her teeth.

“Well- is my apartment safe?” he asked hesitantly.

“I don’t fuckin’ know.” she said, emerging again from the bathroom and shutting the door behind her.

She didn’t sound overly concerned for his safety.

Rob swallowed. “Can I stay here?”

“Sure.” she responded almost immediately without pausing to think or look up at him.

“Thanks.”

She pulled her shoes off to reveal light pink and striped socks. They were the only color on her outfit- hidden underneath the chunky, leather, biker boots. He thought it was strangely adorable. He’d seen her pistol whip a man nearly to death not more than two hours earlier. Rob himself was wearing striped socks and he took his sneakers off. Her eyes flicked over to him and she seemed to pause for a second when she saw them but she made no comment.

He watched her pull off her studded leather wristbands and spiked bracelets and rings and drop them all on her dresser.

“I’ll only stay the one night so don’t worry.” he said, “Do you have a couch I can sleep on?”

“You can stay in my bed.” she said calmly and pulled her shirt off over her head, dropping it on the floor without looking in his direction.

He turned his head away, feeling color rise to his cheeks unexpectedly. He hadn’t seen anything particularly amazing- a black bra holding small breasts and a white, boney, torso.

“Uh.” he said for lack of anything better to say. He heard a soft thump of her trousers hitting the floor but her feet made almost no sound as she padded across the carpet towards him and cupped his cheek with her hand. When he looked up she’d shed the bra too but he tried not to stare.

“I can sleep on the floor.” she said to him. He hadn’t seen her expression change or her voice change since she’d taken her clothes off. He’d barely seen them change since he’d met her actually.

He turned his face back up at hers, letting his eyes wander down across her pale, slender, form slowly. He placed his fingertips against her hip, letting them stray down the natural slope toward her inner thigh.

“You don’t have to.” Rob said, looking her in the eye. She placed her hand on the center of his chest and pushed him back onto the bed, climbing on top of him.

 


	2. THE ONE IN THE SUIT

Chapter 2: THE ONE IN THE SUIT

_The same night in a different part of town._

In the city there were two main sources of drugs and of drug dealers- Salvatore “Mumbles” Massino  and Seamus “Slaughterhouse” O’Hanlen.

No two men could be more different.

Salvatore Massino was a ‘legitimate’ mafioso. A godfather. He never touched drugs himself, lived in a nice house on the outskirts of the city, and was as clean cut as they come.

Seamus O’Hanlen was a junkie. A violent, charismatic, junkie, but a junkie none the less. He never stayed in one crack house for long and on sight appeared just like any other strung out psychopath, with a notoriously unkept appearance. He never allowed himself to be seen in public with no less than three stains of his own or someone else’s bodily fluids on his clothes- which hung loosely around his skeletal frame. Seamus’s gang had no order and no rules other than to not piss him off. But they were a fast growing little cult and strangely efficient- they got the goods out at an increasingly high speed. They were slippery fucks to boot- couldn’t seem to hold any of them in a prison cell for long.

Their differences and the fact that they were both aiming to earn the most drug profit made them natural enemies. And evenly matched ones at that.

Seamus had connections in all the low places- a finger in **_every_** filthy pie in town and his shoe in the door of every seedy bar. But what he lacked was Massino’s friends in high places.

Massino’s short, stubby, fingers would not deign to go where Seamus O’Hanlen’s would but they _would_ scratch the back of the local police force.

That’s why Nikki strolled through the hallways of Massino’s house that night while her partner met with Rob.

Nikki, in some ways, _always_ dressed as if she was having a meeting with the mafia. It was a hot summer day so her three piece suit was a tasteful, crisp white with very thin pinstripes and a dark blue tie. Her black hair was slicked back neatly to her head. Her face was feminine, though- soft dark eyes lined with black and long, thick, eyelashes; and full lips. There was something of an accidental super model about her.

If someone told her that she’d probably kick their ass.

She’d been to Massino’s house many times before but was never not slightly put off by the decadency of it. It wasn’t a mansion but it was rather large for a town house and the outside was enclosed by a high, electric fence that was guarded at all hours of the day and night. In the driveway there was a bubbling fountain with a statue of a naked woman surrounded by cherubs in it. The hallways Nikki walked down had a velvety red carpet and Greek pillars every few feet. It all added up to Nikki feeling like she was in a Vegas hotel rather than a home where real people lived.

The room Massino chose to meet her in when she walked in was no less thematic. His study had mahogany wood paneling and Massino himself stood by a large, unlit, fireplace, looking up over his shoulder like some Marlon Brando impersonator.

Massino was in no way stranger to look at than O’Hanlen.

The man had a body made up of nearly geometrical shapes. He had a broad frame- his body with his legs a foot apart and his arms at his side would’ve been a near perfect box. A box with a large, oval shape on top for a head. His head was bald save for a neat rectangle of black hair that circled the back of his skull and ended at his ears. His entire head was wider rather than narrow with two very small and pecularily round ears at the sides.

Nikki couldn’t help but study him and wonder where the fuck nature had gone wrong, even when he was trying to speak to her.

 “A friend as good as you does not have to schedule an appointment to visit.”

Nikki thought to herself that this was a gross exaggeration. They were not friends. She knew it and he knew it.

He continued “… so I assume you are here for business and not pleasure.”

She tried not to let the disdain she felt for the very idea of coming to see Massino for any type of ‘pleasure’- regardless of how innocent- show on her face.

“I’m here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.” she said smoothly with a slight quirk of her eyebrow that made Massino frown.

 _We can all play the Brando game- stick that in your cigar and smoke it,_ she thought with satisfaction.

He gestured to one of two oversized leather armchairs faced against eachother.

“Then by all means have a seat first.”

Nikki slid into the chair and crossed her legs, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

“I want you to give me $1,500,000.” Nikki said bluntly without flinching.

“That’s not a business proposition. That’s an extremely rude ** _request_**.”

“I have 100 kilos of cocaine.”

“Is that so? Good for you.” Massino’s voice was always gentle and very quiet- it was the origin of his nickname. But when he spoke everyone else in the room fell silent. He was looking at Nikki with a neutral expression. She smiled back at him.

“Here I thought you were always willing to help the local police force.”

Massino’s lips drew up slightly. They were strange lips- very small but thick.

 _He looks like something from a 6 year old’s drawing_ , Nikki thought, trying not to squint at his face.

“Do you not see the paradox in me buying drugs from a police woman? It’s not the natural order of things and I have a very high regard for the conservation of good form. Besides which, how could I possibly know what you were selling to me was of high quality?” Massino spread his hands out in front of him in a helpless gesture.

Nikki’s smile didn’t falter.

“Does Seamus O’Hanlen sell drugs of high quality?”

The man’s thin eyebrows raised at the mention of his rival. He thought about the question for nearly a minute before answering.

“Yes.”

“Then the drugs I’m offering are of a high quality. Because they’re his.” she examined her fingernails nonchalantly.

Massino blinked at her placidly and his eyes shifted once to the two men standing watch at the door before returning to her face. He gave a small cough- a girlish cough, even- into his hand.

“If you are telling me that you are now in league with Mr.O’Hanlen and are hoping to be a bridge of business between us, then I’ll be forced to ask you to leave my house and never come back.” he said in a calm tone, “I will never join hands with a flea bitten mongrel like that. No amount of persuasion could ever convince me to-”

Nikki raised her hand in the air as a gesture to stop. It was a bold thing to do- probably the boldest thing that had been done to the boss in a long time. She could almost feel the bodyguards by the door’s hands twitch to to their weapons instinctively. But Massino was silenced- though he looked appropriately insulted.

“I am not working with O’Hanlen.” she said, “But I would be happy to explain to you my meaning... If you get me a drink.”

It was no less a stand off than what Rob and Croc were experiencing at the same time on the outskirts of the city. Massino had only to wave his hand and the back of Nikki’s chair could be full of bullet holes. But instead he stood up and walked over to his bar.

“Bourbon the rocks please.” she requested, crossing her legs and leaning her head back against the plush leather seat. The large man returned and handed her her glass before sitting down heavily across from her.

She sipped her drink and ran her tongue over her lips.

“Slaughterhouse O’Hanlen is, as I’m sure you would agree, a hard man to pin down.” she started.

Massino scoffed.

“The police haven’t been very effective in holding any of his men in prison for very long and for every man we do get, three more seem to crawl out of the gutters to replace him. You’ve been incompetent in snuffing him out as well.”

He bristled at the word ‘incompetent’ but said nothing.

“But a few days ago someone in the force had a lucky break. They got a tip off and managed to catch six of O’Hanlen’s men in the act of moving a substantial amount of cocaine.”

Understanding was slowly coloring Massino’s expression. Nikki took another sip of her drink. The clink of the ice was the only sound in the room.

“Now there is a hundred kilos of cocaine languishing in our evidence room.”

He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Your idea is to sell me drugs taken directly off my competitor.”

“Think of it this way- you will be richer 100 kilos of cocaine that he is now short of.” Nikki leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “You know that O’Hanlen is a fucking ghost. The drugs come in and then- poof. They are in a hundred people’s bloodstream and his pockets are heavier- like magic. For all your muscle and connections you haven’t been able to shut down even one of his operations. But we have. At least this one time. He’s at a disadvantage because he’s lost a chunk of profit. You have the opportunity to get a leg up on him.”

Massino’s beady pupils were swimming around in his glassy eyes.

Nikki sighed.

“It’s a steal and you know it is. With the amount I’m selling at, you’ll make a much larger profit than O’Hanlen would’ve even if we hadn’t stolen from him.” she said, sounding dissapointed in him.

Massino’s tongue flicked over his lips briefly- an unconscious sign of greed.

“Alright.” he said. “When will I have it?”

Nikki smiled, standing up and downing the rest of her glass.  

“Five days.”

Massino stood with her and walked her to the door.

“I can have the money for you. In cash. But we’ll trade off in _seven_ days. You can hold the drugs for that long?”

Nikki nodded slowly. “I have five days to get the drugs out of the station. I can keep them in a warehouse until you take them.”

“Do you need any assistance?”

Nikki smirked to herself. The meeting had started with a flat out refusal. Now Massino was offering help. To have weak and greedy men eating out of the palm of her hand was a simple task for Nikki but a satisfying one none the less.

“Just worry about getting the money.” she said, leaving him without a goodbye.

Nikki drove alone to her apartment- in a car, not a motorbike. When she opened the door she pulled a slip of paper from the crack and when she locked it behind her, she slipped the paper back in. She dropped her bag to the floor and pulled a hidden video camera out from inside the kitchen cabinet. She scrolled through the footage of the last 24 hours but saw nothing but the door of her own apartment in varying shades of daylight. She erased the recording and put it back in place then examined the cameras set up next to all of the apartment’s windows.

No one in, no one out.

Nikki was not an overly paranoid person. But her apartment was home to a great deal of valuable information. It was not unreasonable to think of someone breaking in and stealing from her. She had a secure safe in her closet that was filled mostly with video tapes, documents, and photographs. But within those were the means to take down nearly any crime boss, politician, or policeman in town. Or as was more often the case, blackmail them for all they were worth.

Nikki had never been suited to being a police officer. It required a certain sense of moral righteousness that she simply was not equipped with. Nikki had never thought in her life that the world was essentially a safe place or that people were essentially good. She didn’t doubt that some were but most of the good ones seemed to have nothing to do with her. The law worked on the basis of maintaining a system but Nikki saw it as nothing more than a flawed framwork that she could use to her advantage.

Her father had been one of the good cops. But she wanted more for herself than he ever could’ve given her. And she knew that if she wanted it, she had to take it.

The young woman took off her jacket and carefully hung it up in her closet before going back to the kitchen. She mixed herself a glass of peach Schnapps and gingerale to wash out the taste of the bourbon from before. Croc had striped socks and Hello Kitty bandaids- Nikki had girly drinks.

She leaned against the counter and turned her cellphone on. One new text from the crocodile herself.

**got shot at. O’Hanlen’s guys I think. Rob took the job.**

There was another text from a different sender. A person known by anyone in the underground of the city as simply ‘Clink’. Clink got his name from the sound of the big keyring he held on his person at all times and which was the source of his business. Nikki thought ‘Jangle’ might have been a more appropriate name because with over a hundred keys the noise was much more than a simple clink.

He was the one you went to for storage. Garages, abandoned buildings, warehouses, empty studios, even house keys- Clink was your guy. There wasn’t a door he couldn’t open. An alliance with Clink was like having a skeleton key to the whole damn city.

His text read:

**got the space. Warehouse 57**

and then the street address. Nikki finished her drink. There was nothing more pleasant than the feeling of a scheme coming together.


	3. MOVING/SHAKING

MOVING/SHAKING

_Five days later._

The origin of Flippyspoon’s nickname was a mysterious one to most people. There was word on the street that once when someone had done something to make her angry, she’d calmly taken the spoon out of her cup of coffee, flipped it over in her hands, and jammed it in the agressor’s eye socket.  

The story may or may not have been true.

What **was** true was that Flippy was essentially one of the good cops out there. Though ‘good’ and ‘well-behaved’ were not always synonymous. Flippy carried with her at all times a healthy amount of disrespect for rules and very rarely did as she was told especially once she was wrapped up in a case. While not crooked, Flippy was more like a female Dirty Harry kind of cop. Well, atleast she could probably do a good Clint Eastwood impersonation if nothing else.

Part of Flippy’s exemplification of her ‘I don’t work for the law, the law should work for me’ philosophy was strolling into the station an hour late with Starbucks.

There was a van parked outside the back door. It said EPTAC on the side- the same EPTAC that was printed on the side of all the soda cans in the station cafeteria. It was their crappy food sponsor. As she walked past she paused as she caught a glimpse of the man unloading a cardboard box from the back of the van. He laid it on the ground and then stood up, swiping his arm across his forehead before he looked up, noticing her.

 _Hello, gorgeous_ , Flippy thought approvingly. He had on a baseball cap but black bangs fell across his forehead from underneath it nearly down to his bright blue eyes. He was very handsome for a delivery man- fine cut cheek bones and a wide, red, mouth surrounded by a hint of dark stubble.

“Uh…” Flippy said. Then closed her mouth, turned on her heel and walked around to the front door and back to the safety of her desk- a sexual frustration free zone.  Well, except for her pink highlighter and yellow highlighter which were clearly pining for eachother.

Outside by the back door Rob breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the cardboard box back into the van.

Nikki came strolling out and leaned in the doorframe.

“How many boxes left?” she asked, adjusting her tie and peering about nonchalantly.

“A few more. Someone just walked by though.” Rob muttered. Nikki frowned.

“I wouldn’t worry about it... What did they look like?”

“Brown hair. Nice cheekbones. Carrying coffee.”

“Flippy.” Nikki said the name like it was a curse.

“She didn’t look suspicious.” Rob smiled smugly, “I think she was checking me out as a matter of fact.”

Nikki gave an overly long sigh and rolled her eyes.

Rob’s first conversation with Nikki had been over the phone and her first words to him had been ‘listen up, cocksucker.’ After talking to her he’d unconsciously conjured up a mental image of what he imagined her to look like- a slick wise guy in a suit and a fedora who’d mastered the art of the disdainful lip curl. He was a little surprised to find when he did meet her that the only thing missing was the fedora.  

He’d seen Crocodile two days before albeit briefly. He’d called her on his second phone and asked her out to dinner which she’d said yes to but when she met him at the restaurant she’d asked for food to go, made him pay for it, and then taken off on her motorcycle again without so much as five words inbetween to him. She was standing guard outside the door to the evidence room now.

Rob walked back inside while Nikki stood behind the truck and loaded another cardboard box full of the kilogram packages of cocaine, sealed the box with duct tape and walked back.

“I’ll drive with you to the warehouse.” Nikki explained as he came back out and followed him back inside to continue talking to him as he loaded up another, “I don’t want to give you the key and I have to make sure you don’t run off with the drugs.”

Rob wouldn’t have had any idea what to do or where to store an entire truckload of cocaine even if he did have the balls to double cross them but he didn’t want to argue with her.

“Alright. We’re on our way.” Rob finally said, pushing the last box into the van and closing the back doors.

He got in the driver’s seat and Nikki rode shotgun as they pulled out of the police station.

After a few minutes driving Rob started to feel paranoid. It seemed like every car they passed, the driver was looking at them funny. And when he heard sirens in the distance he nearly had a heart attack.

“What happens if we get pulled over?” he asked, turning to Nikki and hoping he didn’t look as panic stricken as he felt. The disparaging look she gave him meant he probably did.

“I’m a cop, you idiot.”

He sighed in frustration. “Yeah. Right. But what if they ask for instance why you’re riding shotgun in a food delivery truck?”

She looked offended.

“Bitch, please. I _run_ this town. No cop’s going to question my authority that doesn’t want to lose their job and wake up two days from now in the hospital with broken kneecaps.”

It was strange that hearing that was a relief. Rob was glad he was on her side because he’d hate to have her as an enemy.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a tad overdramatic?” he muttered.

“No one’s ever lived to tell me it twice.” she replied easily.

He refrained from saying that comments like that were exactly why she was overdramatic.

They pulled into an empty parking lot to the warehouse. It looked abandoned, alright. There was a line of pull up garage doors marked with numbers on it. Rob stopped by 57.

-

Flippy always thought coming into work late was a good idea. Yeah- fuck the man. Until she remembered that she had to walk past the big window to her boss’s office in the hallway to get to her own desk.

 _No problem. Now operating in stealth mode_ , she thought as she approached the window. She couldn’t get on her hands and knees to crawl underneath the window without spilling her coffee and that was unacceptable. So she opted to bend down, leaning back in a limbo pose to stay out of view and slowly tip toe past.

 _You got this. You are one smooth customer._ She reached one leg out as far as it would go, and maneuvered her body across the gap until she was almost to the other side before she almost fell backwards and had to stand up to regain her balance.

She held her breath, still partially bent over. There was no reaction she could discern. So she breathed a sigh of relief and stood back up, grinning at her narrow escape and took another step towards her desk when suddenly Camael was leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest.

Flippy jumped back in shock, nearly spilling her coffee (which she’d so painstakingly tried to preserve) and clutching her heart.

“Jesus Christ!”

Camael quirked an eyebrow at her, levelling her with her notoriously steely gaze through reading glasses.

Cam was a good boss. Flippy didn’t think she could stand working for anyone else in this profession.

Cam didn’t look like a police sergeant- she was waif-like and had a natural beauty to her features that was immediately noticeable even if she tried to cover it up with slightly masculine cut clothes and pulled her long hair up into a tight knot at the back of her neck during the work day. She gave off the impression that she’d had to put up with a lot of shit to get to where she was and wasn’t willing to put up with anymore of yours.

Luckily for Flippy, though, Camael not only didn’t look like a police sergeant but she didn’t really act like one either. She was slightly too rebellious and too justice oriented for such a position traditionally but it was those same qualities that made her good for the job. Atleast Flippy thought so. She knew Cam had had her job on the line many times from her own superiors for defending Flippy and her partner’s actions.

The times when any more conservative boss would’ve told Flippy to stand down, Camael would say ‘do it. and don’t get caught or it’s my ass on the line. now get out of my office.’ So Flippy kept working as a police officer. As long as Cam was her boss.

But even Camael had limits and Flippy, as a gesture of friendly affection, made a good show of pushing them everyday. And the woman was like a phantom- appearing out of nowhere whenever Flippy thought she was _just_ about to get away with it.

“You have got to stop doing that.” Flippy said, pointing at her accusingly and still clutching her chest.

“Doing what? Breathing?” she drawled, blinking apathetically.

“No, sneaking up on me.”

Cam cleared her throat pointedly. “This is _my_ office.”

“Uh. Right.” Flippy attempted to sidestep around her. To no avail.

“Did you finish writing up that report?”

“Oh- that? That’s, um. That’s more of a _long-term_ project.”

“It takes under an hour to do and you know it.”

“I was busy last night.”

“It was due last week.”

Flippy exhaled the longest sigh she could manage without getting dizzy from oxygen deprivation.

“Why oh why is it that everytime I walk into this office I must have my spirit crushed under the cogs of the bureaucracy?”

“Because you walked in an hour late with Starbucks and you didn’t bring me a green tea.”

-

“Are you going to help at all?” Rob finally demanded, out of breath.

Nikki had taken off her jacket and was sitting on one of the unloaded boxes, texting on her cellphone. She raised an eyebrow at him skeptically.

“No, Rob.” she sighed, like it really put her out to have to answer such a stupid question.

He unloaded two more boxes and heard her yawning loudly.

“If you’re bored you could unload a few boxes yourself.” he said through gritted teeth.

Nikki frowned and steepled her fingers together.

“Rob…. you are getting _paid_ to do this. Paid out of **_my_** money. That means **_I_** make the fucking rules and I don’t really feel like helping out right now. When **_you_** start paying **_me_** , then you can sit on your ass all you want. But no money? No sitting on your ass. That’s how the real world works, Rob. Besides the even more obvious reason that you’re not allowed to talk back to me is because I’m pretty confident that I can kick your ass. There’s only one badass in this warehouse, Rob, and it sure the fuck isn’t you so why don’t you get back to moving boxes.”

Rob was pretty sick of dealing with this sassy lady-cop bullshit but he waited until he had his back to her to roll his eyes because he didn’t doubt that she probably _would_ kick his ass.

By the time he got to the last box he kicked it into the warehouse and then sat down on it heavily, throwing the EPTAC baseball cap off onto the floor.

While he caught his breath Nikki slipped her phone away into her pocket and stood up- smiling.

“Well done.” she said giving a sarcastic three claps of applause. “Now- shall we sample the merchandise?”

Rob _did_ perk up at that.

Nikki took a butterfly knife from her pocket and opened it up, flipping it over her hand several times until it snapped with the blade out. She pressed it down the center of one of the cardboard boxes and slit it open, pulling out a package of cocaine and doing the same to it.

Rob ran his tongue over his lips as he watched Nikki chop the white powder and push it into a line on the top of the box. It had been atleast a week since he’d last snorted coke- he didn’t really have the money. A month ago he’d been set to be in a play but it had fallen through. He could always call home but he felt pathetic- asking his parents for cash. He couldn’t bring himself to borrow it when he knew he’d just spend it on drugs. He _needed_ this job.

Nikki pulled a small, silver, tube from her pocket and offered it to him. He did the first line and then sat back, blinking while Nikki did the second. She coughed once and ran the back of her hand across her nose. Then looked up at him with a big grin on her face.

“How do you feel?” Rob asked, a giggle in his voice.

“Ready to give out traffic tickets at the speed of light. You?”

“Think I might beat my high score at Robot Unicorn Attack tonight. Maybe go breakdancing at a club. Today might even be the day I learn to skateboard.”

She laughed and then he started laughing as well for no particular reason other than it was what she was doing and then she leaned her head on his shoulder.

“mmmn” she muttered, looking down at the floor. Her dark eyelashes were long and thick- they left shadows on her cheeks. “You know why we picked you and not some other asshole to do this, Robbie?”

“I have no idea.” he admitted.

She looked up at him and brushed her fingertips against the line of his cheekbone.

Her hand trailed down his neck slowly until it rested over his chest. He swallowed. His heart was hammering and he wondered if she could feel it against her palm. She leaned forward. The top buttons of her starch, collared, shirt were undone. Rob could see the lace of a frilly white bra- surprisingly girlish for someone who wore a three piece suit. She had a freckle by her collar bone that he found his eyes drawn to. Her lips brushed past his earlobe as she whispered in his ear.

“…Because you were the best looking.”

Nikki stood up abruptly, grabbing her jacket off the box and throwing it on as she walked towards the door.

“Come on- I gotta return the van. And we shouldn’t stick around here all day.”

“Uh.” Rob remained sitting, looking dumbfounded. She looked at him over her shoulder expectantly than snickered at his expression.

“What? Did you think we were going to _make out_ or something?”

He frowned, pouting and grabbed his baseball cap off the floor.

-

Several hours later. On the other side of town. A man lies twitching in an alleyway. He tries to take deep, calm, breaths but blood is bubbling from between his lips and his whole body is going cold. He shakily finds the strength to lift his arm and dip his fingertip in the blood pooling underneath him. He slowly scrapes his finger against the pavement beside him, scrawling out a dying message…

(to be continued! )


	4. THE BODY

_the next morning_

Flippy was a little surprised when she pulled up in the squad car at 6 A.M and there was already a head of bright red, curly, hair bent over the corpse beyond the crime scene tape. Early in the morning your head is still halfway in the poetry of the dream world, and whimsical thoughts float more freely through your thoughts than practical ones. Flippy thought vaguely that there was something beautiful about the scene. It was a grey morning that lacked sunlight in a grey city made of concrete and asphalt. But here in this alleyway there was color- Are-are’s curls the color of autumn leaves spilling down the back of her black shirt, yellow crime scene tape, and a pool of rust around a man in a dark blue sweatshirt with a crimson stain on it.

Flippy shook the thought from her head and stepped up to where her partner was kneeling by the body. Her partner, R.R.K… Are-are-kay… Are-are…..Are-are wasn’t truly a police woman. Are-are was an artist. Are-are was a poet and a painter and a romantic and a realist all at once.  Her slender frame seemed to have many lives inhabiting it- a warrior, a lover, a philosopher, a revolutionary… But in this life she was a cop. And that had always struck Flippy as somewhat strange. Flippy had chosen her as her partner. She’d stuck out like a sore thumb the day she’d met her. From all her other options of partners Are-are was the most experienced- having been rejected from her last three partners, she wasn’t like the other rookies looking to get matched up; a tiger lily in a field of weeds. There were times (almost daily) that Flippy would throw her hands up and nearly threaten to abandon Are-are but at the end of the week, they were compatible and furthermore they were friends. That was more than Flippy could’ve said with any other partner she’d ever had.

Flippy peered at the corpse, cocking her head to one side. A young man- though not too young. Some of the bodies seemed so young that it was sad. This man was atleast thirty- he was past the age where people could call his death a “tragedy.” People rarely seemed to care when adults died. 

He wasn’t clean cut either. He was a hoodlum. Even less reason for people to care. His eyes were still open- staring vacantly to the side and his mouth hung slack revealing rather dirty teeth. They were further stained with blood which left a track from the corner of his mouth down his cheek where it had dribbled from his lips.

There was a bullet hole in his chest- ripped through the fabric of his heavily stained sweatshirt and through his skin and muscle. It was warm out and there was a slight odor coming rising off of the body.

“Do we have any information yet?” Flippy asked, frowning.

Are-are turned her head up to her for the first time since she’d walked over. She was chewing. She was holding a goddamn ham sandwich. She was eating a goddamn ham sandwich over the fucking corpse.

“Are-are…. you’re…”

“Good morning, Flappers!” she exclaimed gleefully with her mouth full.

“Everyday at this job I try to expect the unexpected and it just doesn’t work. Everyday you leave me dumbfounded.”

“Aw, thank you, Flippina, I love you too.”

“Not a compliment.” Flippy sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, “What do we have here?”

“Ham and lettuce and-“

“The body. Not the sandwich. Why are we here at 6 A.M looking at a dead guy in an alley?”

A look of genuine concern passed over Are-are’s countenance and she stood up, widening her baby blue eyes at her. “Because we’re cops, Flippy. And the law-“

“No, I wasn’t being existential either. For fuck’s sake. I just want to know- who is this douchebag?!” Flippy pointed accusingly at the corpse. Because really, if someone was going to wake her up at 6 AM they were either dead or about to be.

“His name’s Ricky Gazelle.” Are-are said importantly.

“Gazelle?”

“No wait- it’s Ravalle.”

“Hm. Doesn’t sound familiar.” Flippy frowned at the body.

“They’re like antelopes-“

“I know what a gazelle is, you noodle!” She shook her head and spotted the forensic pathologist in a white jumpsuit and a blue facemask walking towards them. “Oh! Vanya! Could you maybe enlighten me?”

The woman turned and began speaking to them, without removing the mask from her face. What came out sounded something like pig latin being transmitted from a muffled radio station being recorded on Jupiter.

Flippy pursed her lips and nodded.

“Okay, yes, very good. But now repeat that without the mask on so that we have an inkling as to what the hell you’re trying to tell us.”

Vanya rolled her eyes like it wasn’t her problem they couldn’t hear her. She pulled back the hood of her suit and it was like watching a slow motion shampoo commercial- silky, dark, hair tumbled out around her face and also in slow motion she pulled off her face mask and pursed her already pouty, full, lips at them.

“ ** _What_**?!” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Anything. At this point I am literally willing to accept any information about this dead body I have been called out to look at. You can even lie to me- just make shit up. I don’t even care anymore.” Flippy said dryly before taking a sip of her coffee.

“His name is Ricky Lavalle. There’s a file on him back at the office. He’s been in and out of the slammer a few times-“

“The slammer. Oh my god, are you hearing this?” Flippy scoffed to Are-are, “Did they put him in **_the slammer_** after they **_threw the book at him_**? What are we, detectives from  a film noir? _The slammer_?”

“Ooh if we’re in a film noir maybe Bogie will show up.” Are-are murmured in excitement, licking the crumbs from her sandwich off her fingers.

Vanya rolled her eyes slowly.

“He’s pretty notorious around the city under the name Clink.”

“Oh.” Flippy said. “That _does_ sound more familiar.”

“That’s because it’s a sound effect, Flippy. It makes sense you’ve heard it before.” Are-are said with understanding.

“Well, that is the origin of the name. ‘Clink’ because he carries keys with him. He’s the key to the city’s crime world in a way- manages every warehouse, garage, crackhouse, in town. Indispensable resource to anyone trying to hide something or just needs some space for whatever else. Freelance though, doesn’t work for any boss in particular.” Vanya explained.

Flippy frowned and kneeled down next to the body, pushing him gently one way and then the other and patting his pockets.

“Well, he doesn’t have any keys on him now…” she muttered, furrowing her brow.

“Yeah, Vanya, you sure this is the right guy?” Are-are asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“It’s the right guy, you morons. His keys must have been stolen off him. It’s probably why he’s dead.” Vanya said.

Flippy frowned up at her. “You’re not in a very cooperative mood this morning, Vanya, I must say.”

 “I’m here to look at dead people, not blow sunshine up your ass.” she retorted, before turning on her heel.

Flippy stared after her incredulously and then stood up, spreading her arms out.

“Honestly it’s like everyone who works for this police station lives in a fucking alternate reality! **_I_** should be the weirdest person here! There isn’t any more room for your strong personalities! Like, go home already!”

One of the other pathologists kneeling by the wall looked up in expectant surprise.

“Um… can we really go home?” he asked timidly.

“Of course you can’t go home! Get back to work!” Flippy shouted back.

She kneeled next to the corpse. Are-are was staring down in concentration.

“Look at this.” she said, pointing to the corpse’s hand. His right index finger was red. “And then here…”

Are-are moved her own finger to point to the pavement by the body above where his hand rested. There was a scrawl in blood against it.

Flippy stood up again to get better perspective, squinting.

“It looks like… numbers?” she murmured.

By the body, written in blood by the hand of the dying man was the number 57.

 


	5. THE GRIEVING WIDOW

THE GRIEVING WIDOW

_Not long afterwards…._

“Friends, Romans, countrymen- lend me your ears!” Flippy waltzed into the station’s offices alone with her arms outstretched dramatically. “For we- as in me and the Are Are of Kays, the far superior, and quite dynamic duo, have a murder case.”

Nikki and Croc sitting at their desks didn’t even look up from what they were reading.

Flippy slapped the case file down on her own desk.

“Jealous, Nikki?” she wagged her eyebrows up and down.

Nikki very slowly moved her eyes up to Flippy’s face.

“Yeah. Let me just dredge up a fuck to give about that. Oops, sorry. Can’t. The fuck reservoir has run bone dry.”

Flippy frowned, only slightly dissapointed. Nikki seemed to be reading an old file and Croc had her feet up on her desk with a comic book in her lap.

“You guys don’t look overly busy.” she said dryly.

“Work smart not hard.” Croc piped up.

“Working overtime for the biggest bitches of the year award though.” Flippy muttered, sitting down by her computer.

Nikki smiled and placed a hand over her chest. “I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me.”

“Such an honor to even be nominated.” Croc added in a deadpan.

“Shouldn’t you be out there chasing perps and cross questioning and the like?” Nikki finally drawled.

“Eh. Are-are’s telling the wife. Couldn’t get **_me_** to do that for love or money. And I’m waiting for an hour until the restaurant next door opens so I can ask if they heard anything suspicious.” she paused. “But the last people I want my work ethic to be criticized by is you two.”

Cam walked into the office.

“Flippy? You’ve got the Ricky Lavalle case right?” Cam asked.

There was a crash. Nikki had been bringing a mug of tea to her mouth and had dropped it to the ground. Flippy turned in her seat to make a wisecrack at her about her clumsiness but didn’t when she saw her face. She’d never seen Nikki look the way she looked in that moment- her face white as a sheet and her eyes open wide. The wisecrack died in her throat.

“Clink Lavalle?” Nikki croaked.

Cam gave her a perplexed look and then turned her attention back to Flippy.

“Vanya just called and said the restaurant next door’s owners just showed up.” She turned and left.

As soon as the sergeant was out of sight, Nikki was out of her seat and by Flippy’s desk, reaching for the case file. But Flippy was faster and snatched it out of her reach just as her fingers touched the manilla.

“Oh, **_now_** you’re interested?” she grinned, swiveling slightly in her office chair.

Nikki looked ready to murder.

“Let me see that.” she swept her arm through the air to grab it but Flippy moved it over her head. Nikki made another attempt to snatch it and Flippy kicked her desk, sending her office chair sailing back a few feet.

“Give me the damn file, you- you **_child_**!” Nikki sputtered.

Flippy held the folder tightly against her chest.

“What do you want it for?”

Nikki seemed to compose herself a bit, straightening her jacket.

“Just thought I’d give you some professional advice.” she sniffed. Flippy threw her head back and laughed out loud.

“Alright, smartass-“ Nikki lost her temper and grabbed for the file once more. Flippy held onto the end of it and they each pulled from either side.

“You’re going to rip it, you _clodhopper_!”

“Then let go!”

“It’s _my_ file! _You_ let go!”

“No!”  
A sheaf of photos fell out of the folder in the struggle and Croc leapt out of her seat and took them. Nikki let go of the file sending Flippy stumbling back into her chair.

Croc was staring numbly at the photos in her hands and when Nikki looked over her shoulder, panic momentarily flickered across her face. Flippy stood up and yanked the photos from her them, stuffing them back in the folder.

“What is wrong with you guys? Get your own damn case!” she huffed, stomping out of the office.

When Flippy was out of the room Nikki turned to Croc.

“This is fucked up.”

“I know.”

“57.” Nikki swallowed. “Clink rented out warehouse 57 to us. He still had the master key to it….. And he wrote 57 with his blood as he died…. Fuck.” She sat down heavily in Flippy’s chair.

“It’s… it’s gotta be O’Hanlen.” Croc said, standing rigidly still. “He’s trying to get his drugs back. Clink owns all the best storage in town so he probably killed him, took his keys, and is looking for what we took.”

Nikki nodded slowly.

“Yeah… yeah, maybe… I mean, that could’ve been Clink’s final act of good will. He wrote 57 down as a warning to us. ‘Cause obviously he couldn’t just write our names or something. Would be too long anyway.”

“Clink always kept his keys on his belt. But in the pictures I didn’t see them. That means O’Hanlen has the master key to our warehouse now if he killed him…. And the drugs are still there.”

-

_While this was happening._

Possibly the worst part of Are-are’s job was breaking news of deaths to family members. It never got easier and she’d never learned the right thing to say in those situations. She’d had to tell husbands that their wife was dead. Had to deliver news of missing children being found cold and lifeless in the river that ran through the city. She’d stood paralyzed while mothers wept against her shoulder. Been screamed at that it was the police’s fault that these things happen.

But sometimes it was easier to break news. And sometimes the fact that it was easier was sadder.

When she’d showed Jenny Ravalle her badge and asked to come inside, the woman had simply said “So he’s dead now?”

The Ravalle’s apartment was tacky and smelled like the inside of a hamster cage. Are-are perched on the edge of a sofa and could feel the springs from it through the cushion. Mrs.Ravalle sat down across from her. She was the sort of person who looked like they’d been tired for so long that it had become a characteristic of their face. She’d been pretty in highschool, probably. Her hair was bleached blonde but the roots were dark. The velour tracksuit she wore had been hot pink once but was a faded dusty rose now.

“How’d it happen?” she asked without emotion.

“Um. His body was discovered this morning in an alleyway down town. He’d been shot.”

“That sounds about right.” Jenny Ravalle said, lighting a cigarette, and pulling her legs up onto the couch.

“We know your husband was involved in… supplying storage space to various clients.” Are-are tried diplomacy but the wife of the deceased was having none of it.

“He gave criminals places to hide their shit.” Jenny inhaled.

Are-are nodded slowly and decided to change her tactic. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“Listen, Jenny. We want to catch who killed your husband. I’m guessing he had too many enemies to list. But any information you can give us about him would be useful.”

Jenny smiled bitterly. “You have his police file. You probably know him as well as I do.” she paused. “… _did_.”

There was a muffled sound of a baby crying. Are-are couldn’t tell if it was in Jenny’s apartment or a neighbour’s. Regardless, Jenny didn’t stand up to go to it.

“Ricky never talked to me about work.” Jenny said, shaking her head. She put her cigarette out in an already full ashtray on her coffee table. “People were always calling him away at weird hours. He’d get money then he’d lose it. Sometimes we had to leave and stay at my ma’s for a week and then come back. That’s all I knew about Ricky’s work. That’s all that mattered to me.”

She pushed the sleeves of her hoodie up in a nervous gesture but Are-are caught sight of dark purple bruises on her forearms. Jenny caught her staring and quickly shoved the sleeves back down.

“Right. Like I said, I don’t know anythin’.” she stood up, going to the kitchen and busying herself with nothing in particular.

Are-are stood up and rested her hip against the kitchen counter.

“What about where you were last night?”

Jenny paused, her back to the police officer.

“I was here.” she turned her head. “Why?”

Are-are gave her her brightest smile and shrugged. “Oh it’s just procedure. I have to ask. Can anyone confirm that?”

Jenny’s frown deepened. “No.”

Are-are nodded.

“Hey- did Ricky have any other family that we should contact?”

Mrs.Ravalle thought about it for a minute. “Well, he has a brother. Steve Ravalle. But they didn’t get along for shit. Haven’t talked in years. I think he still works in the city though. Not sure he’d care.”

“We’ll give him a call.” Are-are smiled.

“Thank you for your time and sorry for your loss.” she said as Jenny led her back to the door. “Oh- and one more thing.”

She turned around in the doorframe and smiled. “Don’t leave town.”

 


	6. PORTUGUESE

PORTUGUESE

Are-are met Flippy at the crime scene once more where the CSI team were packing up their final things. Vanya had lost the white jumpsuit entirely and was leaning against the brick wall adjusting her makeup in a compact mirror.

The owners of the restaurant were an elderly couple who were standing nervously by the door.

“Hey! We’re here to ask you questions about the dead guy we found in the alley by your restaurant!” Are-are chirped happily. Flippy elbowed her in the ribs and then took a photo out of her purse of Ricky, holding it to them.

“Have you ever seen this man before?”

The owner took the photograph carefully as if it might burn his fingers and held it by the corner, pinched between his forefinger and thumb to his wife. They both shook their heads and handed it back.

“Did you see anything strange last night? Hear anything?”

The couple looked at eachother and then back to Flippy in confusion.

“I don’t think they speak english?” Are-are winced and Flippy sighed.

“Charades time?” Flippy asked.

“Oh goody!” Are-are said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Okay.” Flippy turned back to the couple. “Did you-“

Are-are pointed at them.

“Hear-“

Are-are motioned to her ears.

“Any gunshots?”

Are-are made her hands into the shape of a gun and fired imaginary bullets at Flippy.

“Pchoo! pchoo!”

“AGH! I’M SHOT GOD HELP ME! I’M DYING!” Flippy yelled, falling to the ground and clutching her chest. She stood up again and cleared her throat. “Yes- did you hear anything like that last night?”

The couple looked thoroughly puzzled and more than a little afraid.

Vanya snapped her compact shut and sauntered over to them, turning to the couple.

She opened her mouth and smoothly said “Você já ouviu algum barulho do lado de fora do restaurante na noite passada?”

Flippy and Are-are blinked at her, speechless.

The owner nodded his head slowly.   
“Há sempre um monte de vozes à noite. Arruaceiros. Mas eu ouvi alguém entrar em uma discussão.” he answered.

Vanya looked intrigued and continued.

“Quantas pessoas?”

“Apenas duas pessoas.”

“O gênero?”

The old man shrugged.

His wife said sympathetically, “Sua audição não é o que costumava ser. E eu estava na cozinha, eu não ouvi nada.” and gave a helpless shrug.

“Ouviu os tiros?”

The couple exchanged a very nervous glance and the wife looked down at the ground.

“Nós dois ouvimos um tiro .... Mas não podia dizer o quão longe ele era! Às vezes ouvimos barulho parecido. Este é um bairro ruim. Nós não querem se envolver. Nós dois ouvimos um tiro .... Mas não podia dizer o quão longe ele era! Às vezes ouvimos barulho parecido. Este é um bairro ruim. Nós não querem se envolver. Quando ouvimos que ambos se esconderam na cozinha. Então, quando não mais barulho veio, fomos para casa. Pensávamos que pode mesmo ter imaginado.”

Vanya frowned. “A que horas foi isso?”

The owner stroked his salt and pepper mustache. “Tínhamos acabado de fechar quando o tiro partiu. Assim, cerca de onze horas.”

Vanya smiled at them winningly.

“Muito obrigado. Você tem sido uma grande ajuda.”

They smiled back at her and walked back into their restaurant.

Flippy picked her jaw up. “You speak Portuguese?”

Vanya gave her a dissaproving glance. “You don’t?”

Are-are gave her a round of applause to which Vanya did a polite bow.

“So what did they tell you?”

Vanya sighed. “The husband heard an argument outside between two people but he can’t determine what gender they were. Then they both heard a single gunshot but they hid in the kitchen until they were sure there was no more gunfire then went straight home. They’d just closed the restaurant at around eleven o’clock and so that’s when they’re saying all this happened.”

“Well that doesn’t seem overly useful.” Flippy grumbled, “is it the right time, though?”

Vanya nodded. “To be more exact I’ll have to cut the guy open but he probably kicked it around 11, like the guy said.”

“Well cut him open quick- I’m grasping at straws so far with this case.” Flippy sighed. Vanya gave her a very sarcastic salute and walked off.

“How is the grieving widow?” Flippy asked, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up. Are-are followed suit and they began strolling down the sidewalk. 

“Unmoved.” Are-are blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth. “And with some serious bruising.”

Flippy raised her eyebrows. “Alibi?”

“Home alone.”

“So no alibi.”

Flippy frowned and inhaled.

“Nikki and Croc started acting pretty weird when they found out who died.”

It was a summer day but it had been grey like autumn since morning. Grey like the fingernails on the corpse in the alley…. It felt like it had been a long day but it wasn’t long past 3 o’clock.

“If Nikki and Croc are worried it makes me think this isn’t a domestic case. We should be looking at his enemies, his clients, drug dealers, shit, I don’t know- hitmen, ninjas, super villains, whoever the fuck else _those two_ associate with.”

Are-are giggled. “I still think you’re making them out to be a lot more sinister than they are.”

Flippy rolled her eyes. “You trust them because you _like_ them. I **don’t** trust them because I like them- anyone I like is clearly up to no good and should be watched out for.”

“What about the number?” Are-are asked, “Seems awfully mysterious, doesn’t it?”

Flippy laughed. “Mysterious? What’s mysterious about it? Isn’t it obvious? It’s probably a warehouse number.”

 


	7. WAREHOUSE 57

WAREHOUSE 57

 _The same afternoon_ ….

When Rob came back to his apartment from grocery shopping he knew something was wrong immediately. When he turned the handle on his door it was open. He’d locked it when he’d gone out. Immediately he let go of the door knob and took a step back, swallowing hard.

A variety of ideas came to mind. It could be whoever the cops had taken the drugs from- they’d found out where he lived and were here to rip through his apartment until they found out who he worked for. It could be _real_ cops- possibly tipped off from the woman who’d seen him outside the station- here to arrest him. Or someone else entirely.

Rob wasn’t stupid. Affable and goofy, yes. Stupid, no. The day after he’d agreed to the job he’d bought himself a handgun and started carrying it on his person at all times.

He set the grocery bag down silently by the door and pulled out the gun checking more out of nerves to make sure it was loaded even though he knew it was.

There was a chance that whoever had broken in was milling about in one of the rooms inside and might not notice him if he crept in quietly, so that was one option. There was also a chance that whoever it was would be waiting for him in the middle of the room so he should go in with a bang, guns blazing. Being of the more dramatic persuasion, Rob went with the second choice. He turned the knob, then kicked the door open and burst into the room with the gun held in front of him with two hands like something out of a _Die Hard_ film.

Nikki was sprawled over a chair with her suit jacket draped over her shoulders. She looked up at his entrance calmly but expectantly. Croc was sitting with her ass on his kitchen counter and her feet dangling over the side, a lit cigarette hanging from her lips.

“Afternoon, Robbie.” Nikki said coolly as if she didn’t have a gun pointed at her.

Rob didn’t lower his weapon. Another thing he wasn’t too stupid to figure out. He was the outside help brought in to help two crooked cops move drugs. It was unimaginable to him that they’d be happy to just pay him off and let him go on his merry way knowing what they were up to. He was a liability. He kicked the door shut behind him without moving the muzzle of his gun or altering his gaze.

“You broke into my house.” he stated as a fact rather than question, keeping his voice even.

Nikki chuckled. “What’s a few padlocks between friends?”

Rob took a deep breath through his nose and flicked back the safety on the gun.

“Or a few bullets?” he said.

Nikki frowned and clicked her tongue. “Well, look who’s the tough guy now.”

Croc took a drag off her cigarette and flicked some ash into his sink.

Rob swallowed hard but he wasn’t going to let his anxiety show even though the gun felt like it weighed a ton in his hands. _You’re in a movie. This is your scene. Pretend it’s a fake gun._

“I don’t want any trouble. I just want the money.” he kept his tone even but firm. Talking slowly and enunciating kept the shake out of his voice. In acting class they probably would’ve called it dramatic effect. “Just give me the money and you never have to see me again…”

His eyes flickered momentarily between them and he broke character. “….if you don’t want to.” he added, his tone softer. He focused his eyes back on Nikki who was closest and therefore his target.

She stood up slowly and Rob took two steps back automatically even though he was the one holding the gun. Nikki had her hand in her pocket and took two steps forward. There was something of a swagger in her walk. She moved like a panther- slow and purposeful.

“What are you planning to do with that?” she laughed once, her eyebrows flicking up, “Shoot me?”

She wrapped her hand around his wrist, and smashed her shoulder against his chest, throwing him back against the wall as she wrestled the gun from his grip. 

His finger had barely even touched the trigger. He couldn’t shoot them. Not really. He tried to hold onto the gun but her nails scraped hard against his skin and she pulled his fingers back at a bad angle. He winced, letting go, before she broke something.

She smiled smugly. “You are in possession of an illegal firearm, Robbie. It’s my duty as an officer of the law to confiscate this.”

Nikki wrapped her hand around his neck and slammed him back against the wall again with such force that the back of his head bounced off it and his teeth shook in his skull. Her palm pressed down hard on his adam’s apple and he choked.

“Croc- help!” he blurted out.

“It doesn’t look like she needs my help.” Croc responded from across the room, lighting another cigarette.

“I meant ME!” Rob snapped incredulously.

Nikki let go of him all the same and walked back to where she’d been sitting before, laying the gun on the table.

Rob coughed, putting his hand to his neck. “Seriously what the _fuck_ is wrong with you two?! It’s like bad cop, badder cop.”

“We’ve got a problem.” Croc said.

“Yeah- mental problems. Several of them.” he snapped back.

“We came over for tea and you pulled a gun on us!”

“When people come over for tea they don’t break into the house!”

“Can you two shut the fuck up?” Nikki asked, “Would that be at all possible?”

They both snapped their mouths shut.

“The guy who got us the warehouse where the drugs are is lying in our morgue with a bullet hole in his chest. He had the original key to our place on him but they’ve been taken- most likely by his killer. And his dying message was writing the number of our warehouse- 57- by his body in his own blood.” Nikki explained.

She sighed and sat down on Rob’s couch.

“The case isn’t ours. Two other officers got it before us. But it’s _gotta_ be O’Hanlen that did him in. So he could steal back his drugs. If the other officers start snooping around they could find out what we’re up to while they’re digging. We’re finished if that happens.” 

Rob processed what she was saying. Then he laughed once. 

“Then you two are in the shit and no mistake.” he said, still laughing, a bit maliciously. He stopped and twisted his mouth into a cruel smirk. “But I don’t really see what that’s got to do with me.”

There was a tense pause. Croc flicked her lighter twice, watching the flame, before speaking up in a straight forward tone:

“Flippy saw you unloading boxes from the back. Then 100 kilos cocaine goes missing from the evidence room. Nobody saw **_us_** , Rob. Just **_you_**. It’d be the easiest thing in the world to frame you up for this.” She hopped off the counter and walked over to the center of the room.

He could practically feel the color drain from his face. Now real panic was starting to form like a block of ice in his stomach.

Nikki whistled under her breath and grinned. “Now _there’s_ a plan. How do you fancy prison food, Robbie?”

He made a lunge towards his gun but in a flash it was in Croc’s hand and she’d grabbed him by the throat, knocked him onto his back and was sitting astride his chest with the gun forced underneath his chin.

“Don’t fuck about.” she growled.

Rob knew he looked pathetic. At this point it was go big or go home. He trembled his lower lip slightly and blinked up at her, his brows knit together and let his eyes fill up with unshed tears.

Acting classes paid off.

Her expression softened and he saw doubt flicker across her face.

“But… we’re not going to do that.” Croc sighed, lowering her gun.

“We’re not? You had me pretty convinced.” Nikki scoffed.

“No…” Croc said but she was clearly thinking as she spoke. “It’s not all gone to shit yet…. There’s no need to take it that far.”

She stood up, shoving the gun into the back of her pants. Rob stayed on the ground seeing his life flashing before his eyes like a boring movie.

“The next 24 hours are critical though. If Are-are and Flippy find the warehouse then there might be trouble. But they’re morons so there’s a good chance we’ll be fine.” Croc said. “But that’s what we need Rob for.”

Rob sat up upon hearing his name, glaring at her suspiciously.

“Wanna make a few extra bucks?”

-

So it was that Rob found himself sitting on an empty box outside of warehouse 57 at 1 o’clock in the morning. There was a street lamp not too far off and the moon was full so it wasn’t too dark even though the smog of the city blurred out the stars.

Croc had been kind enough to give him his gun back so he could defend himself if someone showed up at the warehouse, which they seemed to think was a likelihood. If some gangsters actually **_did_** arrive at the warehouse, armed and demanding the drugs, Rob wasn’t sure what he’d do. He didn’t think he’d last more than a minute under torture and that was at most. He supposed that Nikki and Croc had no choice but to leave him to stand guard, though. They had their jobs and it would be suspicious for them to be seen lurking around a warehouse instead of working.

He sighed with no one to hear him.

When Croc had given him back his gun she’d whispered an assurance to him that all he had to was call her on her cellphone if he got even a whiff of trouble. That did put him at ease somewhat. He’d seen Crocodile in action first hand and he had no doubts that Nikki was as much a force of nature in a brawl as she was just in casual conversation.

But even more pressing than the anxiety of being faced with gangsters showing up and beating the shit out of him, was the fact that he was bored.

He didn’t think Nikki or Croc would exactly approve of him slacking off on the job but **_he_** didn’t exactly approve of them breaking into his appartment neither so he proceeded to pull out a dime bag of pot from inside his shoe and some rolling paper out of his pocket.

If he had to spend the whole night outside of a warehouse he might as well be stoned.

It seemed like a flawless plan.

Not halfway through rolling the joint he heard footsteps and nearly jumped out of his skin.

It wasn’t a mob of cut throat drug dealers that he’d expected, though- it was just one woman, dressed in all black.

Her hair was a tangle of dark red around her face but her eyes were what stuck out most to him- they were the color blue of the sky on a sunny day.

She came to stand a few feet away from him and then beamed with a mouth full of pearly white teeth.

“Yo dude don’t quit rolling on my account. Mind if I join you?”

Rob was having difficulty keeping track of how many times in the last few days he’d been rendered speechless.

“Uh.” he said.

She seemed to take this as an affirmation and pulled up another crate to sit down next to him on.

“I just blazed before I came out here but I’ll split that with you if you can’t handle it by yourself.” she threw her head back in a laugh.

 _What the fuck_. Rob couldn’t think of a single alternate reality where this would make sense: he was guarding a warehouse and some random girl showed up and asked to split a joint with him.

Okay. It wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened to him.

“….Alright then.” he said with a sigh, resigning himself to a fate of ridiculous and improbable situations.

He lit up the joint and inhaled smoke deep into his lungs, holding it in as his eyes watered and he handed it over to her. She grinned and accepted it.

As he blew smoke from his lips he asked her “So what are you doing out here at this hour of the night?”

She handed the joint back to him and he inhaled again.

“Oh, I’m a cop.” she explained casually.

All of the smoke in his lungs came out in a fit of coughing.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” she laughed, patting him on the back.

“You’re… you’re _what_?” he choked out incredulously.  

_Fucking terrific. I need another maverick lady cop in my life about as much as I need a shot in the head._

She smiled, taking another toke.

“Yeah. Kinda lame right? This part of the job is pretty fucking boring to be honest.”

Rob’s fight or flight instincts were going wild but he managed to sit still- partially because he had a feeling he was too paralyzed to move anyway. Croc or Nikki would have texted him if one of their friends was coming to visit him (and smoke his weed) so that meant she wasn’t in league with them. Which furthermore meant he might be screwed. At the same time she didn’t seem like she was about to arrest him so he figured it was safer to not give her a reason to by running.

“What do you mean…?” he asked cautiously.

“Well there was this dead guy, right? And he wrote out this number before he died. And so my partner says it might be a warehouse number ‘cause this dead dude, like, he had all these keys to warehouses. So there’s like five different warehouses in the city that are marked with 57 so I’m checking all of them to see if there’s anything suspicious going on. This is my third one. Oh, shit. I probably shouldn’t be telling you about all this. Confidential and the like. What did you say your name was again?”

Rob was sweating.

“Uh- I didn’t.”

“Haha riiight.” she grinned offering him the joint. He put his hand up and shook his head.

“Uh- no thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

If he could get his hand into his pocket he might be able to subtley send a text to Croc or Nikki and tell them there was a cop at the warehouse. She seemed pretty chilled out. He slowly reached down in his pocket when quite suddenly her hand snapped up and was on his face.

She was stroking his mouth.

“Has anyone ever told you that your lips are like the **_exact_** color of raspberries?” she mumbled, blinking at him.

“Um.” he was going to have a heart attack. If this week didn’t kill him he’d live forever. He slowly slid his phone back into his pocket, too scared to take the risk.

She drew her hand back and looked around. He allowed himself to breathe for a moment.

It only lasted a moment though. She whirled around again and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Oh my god!” she breathed, her eyes wide and searching his face.

She must’ve recognized him. The other cop who’d seen him must have given her a description of the guy she’d seen packing boxes and she was just now realizing that the description matched up with him. Rob was convinced he was fucked.

She squeezed his wrist and leaned forward slightly.

“We should _totally_ hotbox my squad car.” she whispered.

The silence was absolute. Not even a cricket chirped. Rob coughed once, politely.

“No thank you.”

She pulled a face and let go of his wrist.

“Ugh lame! Flippy never wants to either! Except for that one time… But I feel like it’s such a great opportunity!” she blew smoke from the corner of her mouth and held the joint out to him again.

“No, I’m good.” he forced a smile and moved his hand toward his phone again.

“Why do you keep reaching for your phone?”

He froze.

“Uh- I’m not. I’m not reaching for my phone.” he stammered.

She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, you are.”

“I… I was going to send a text to my girlfriend.” it wasn’t exactly a lie? He’d gone on two dates with Croc- one had involved getting shot at and the other had been her ordering take-out and leaving him with the bill but certainly they had to count.

He thought it was a good lie but the woman’s face took on a strange and unreadable expression that made him think he shouldn’t risk trying to send the text.

She sighed heavily.

“I want a girlfriend too….” she stuck her lower lip out slightly.

“Oh.” Rob said uselessly.

“I’m like madly in love with a _perfect_ girl but… I don’t know. Things have been really rocky between us in the past. I’m not sure she still likes me.”

_This is surreal. I am living in a fucking Salvador Dali painting. Am I being asked for love advice right now?_

“Well…” he searched for something to say. “All you can do is try, right? If you let her know how you’re feeling and-and you’re honest about it… Then you can’t lose. I mean, no matter what, you can know that you went for it and you won’t have any regrets.”

She nodded slowly and tried to hand him the joint.

 “No, thanks.” he refused for the third time.

She finished it and put it out on the pavement, looking pensive.

“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t even know how I could tell her, though. I guess I could write her a poem. She might like that. She’s so artistic. But really sensible too, y’know? And funny and smart and sometimes after work she puts her hair down and she runs her hand through her hair and it’s just-“ the girl made a happy noise, wiggling in her seat.

“Um.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t be boring you with this. Oh, man, I guess I should go, huh? Got a few more places to check.” She stood up and then paused. “Hey so what’s in here anyway?”

She wrapped on the metal door with her hand.

Rob leapt to his feet.

“Nothing. It’s empty. My friend works around here. Says all of these warehouses are empty right now.” he blurted out.

He held his breath but she nodded and smiled.

“Kay, cool. Hey thanks for the weed, dude. And like, the love advice and shit. You ever get in trouble you know my number- 911. Hahaha!” she laughed as she walked back to her squad car out of sight.

Rob waited until he heard the distant sound of the engine starting and the car zooming away before he numbly took his phone out of his pocket and dialed Croc.

The phone barely had a half a ring before Croc’s voice said “I’m on my way” and then the click of hanging up before he had a chance to even so much as breathe into the speaker.

Rob waited for about 3 minutes tops before he heard the roar of a motorcycle and a headlight came flashing into view as the bike leapt down an alley, flying into the lot and screeching to a halt. Croc jumped off and threw her helmet aside, not bothering to even put up the kickstand as she took her gun out and whipped her head around.

“Where’s the trouble?”

“There- uh. There is none.” Rob replied lamely.

She paused and lowered her gun, narrowing her eyes at him. She looked around the lot once and seemed to discern that this was true before exhaling loudly through her nose as she shoved her gun back into the back of her pants and put her hands on her hips.

“What the **_fuck_** , Rob?!”

“You got here pretty fast.”

“Well, no shit! I thought you were in danger, you ass!”

“I sort of **_was_** in trouble. Like, a few minutes ago.”

“What?! See an abnormally large moth?! Heard a siren go off on the other side of town?! Jesus Christ! Do you have any idea how many times I almost crashed my bike trying to get here?!” she shouted.

“You didn’t let me say anything over the phone! I didn’t _ask_ you to come racing over here!”

“I’ve been worrying about you all night! I thought the worst!”

He paused and grinned.

“Oh, so you were worried about me, were you?”

“Well now I’m not! Now I just want to beat the shit out of you!”

Rob put his hands up defensively. “You haven’t even let me tell you what happened!”

“I don’t think I care!”

“You should. One of your cop friends was here not a few minutes ago snooping around.” he didn’t think ‘snooping around’ and ‘smoking a blunt’ were usually synonymous but he thought that if he told Croc flat out that he’d just shared a joint with a cop she really would punch him in the face.

“What?! Was it Flippy?” Croc asked, her brows knitting together and the anger draining from her face.

“No. A different cop. Another girl. Curly hair.” he shrugged, pursing his lips, “Kind of a knockout as a matter of fact. You jealous?”

“That was Are-are.” Croc said, ignoring his comment. “What did she say?”

“She and her partner figured out that 57 is a warehouse number. But this isn’t the only warehouse 57 in town. She was checking all of them. Said she hadn’t found anything yet. I told her this one was empty.”

“Did she seem like she was suspicious?”

“Nah. She seemed kind of spacey actually.”

“She’s a hell of a lot sharper at the worst of times than she sometimes lets on.” Croc muttered.  

“Well, if you **_are_** feeling jealous- don’t be. I don’t think she was interested in me anyway to be honest.” Rob went on, casually bringing the conversation back around. Again it didn’t work.

“How’s your injury?” Croc asked quietly, her eyes flicking up to his.

The day after they’d met she’d sent him a text that said only “go to the hospital”. When he’d met her for their ‘dinner out’ without saying hello she’d said ‘did you go to the hospital?’. He had. A few stitches.

“It’s fine. I told you, I’ll live.” he said, giving her a reassuring smile.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really. Well- unless I’m getting knocked to the floor with a gun shoved under my chin. Then it smarts a bit.” he gave her an accusing glance.

He saw her lips quirk up slightly and she looked down at her feet.

“In a few hours I’ll come by again and take over so you can sleep. So… don’t get into anymore trouble before then.” she put her helmet back on and picked up her bike.


	8. THE BROTHER

THE BROTHER

the next day

Steve Ravalle was as unlike his brother Clink as was possible. Flippy had to double check her facts just to confirm that they were actually related.

Steve lived in a penthouse apartment and worked at a prestigious corporation that was centered in one of the biggest skyscrapers in the city. 

Flippy resented being made to sit in the waiting room before interrogating a potential suspect while his secretary went to find him. Even when she’d tried so hard to swagger into the office with her badge held aloft to imply that she had no time for such bullshit.

She sat in a leather seat flipping through magazines while she waited. Are-are had reported absolutely nothing of interest the night before even after visiting every warehouse 57 in the city. It seemed she’d been wrong about the meaning of the number after all. Back to square one. Flippy hated square one. Especially when she was sure she’d been onto something.

“Mr.Ravalle will see you now.” the secretary finally said, sweet as sugar and Flippy stood up and allowed herself to be led into a large office that seemed to be made mostly of windows.

It was a hell of a lot larger than where Flippy worked and she shared her space with other officers. Standing by the largest window and facing out was a man in a grey suit who turned and smiled warmly at her when she came in.

“I’ve never entertained the police here…. How may I help you?” he asked smoothly.

He was a handsome man though not extraordinarily so (Flippy’s mind still wandered back occasionally to the delivery man she’d seen a few days earlier with the nice cheekbones and wondered if he was going to be making any new deliveries soon). Steve Ravalle shared some similarities with his brother- they both had dark, wavy hair and they both had pale green eyes. But it was hard to even associate the man standing before Flippy with the man who’d been face up in the alleyway- pale and covered in his own blood with eyes unblinking.

“Let’s have a seat for a start.” Flippy said, slouching into his office chair. The other man smiled and nodded once, sitting across from her and leaning across his desk.

“What’s all this about?”

“I’m afraid I’m here to deliver bad news.” Flippy said, swallowing. She should’ve made Are-are do this but her partner had been out all night and had had the harder job of talking to the wife so it didn’t seem fair to make her do this too.

Steve Ravalle frowned.

“It’s your brother. He’s… he’s dead. His body was found in an alleyway yesterday morning. He’s been murdered.”

The man sat back in his chair, staring at his desk and shook his head slowly, bringing his hand to his face.

“Good God…” he muttered, taking a deep breath.

“I’m very sorry for your loss.” Flippy cringed.

“Well…” Steve exhaled loudly and shook his head once more. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He led a very rough life. I’m sure it didn’t take you long to uncover that.”

Flippy nodded slowly. “His wife says you haven’t talked to him in a while.”

“Not for years, no. We fell out over his lifestyle choices.” Steve sighed, nodding. A pained look came over his face and his lip trembled. “I always told him it would kill him. Now it has. All the same I wish I could’ve spoken to him again….”

“Uh- there, there.” Flippy said stiffly, feeling antsy to leave.

Steve sniffed and regained his composure, straightening his suit.

“No, I’m alright. Thank you for delivering the news. I’m sorry I made you wait. Please keep me updated on your progress in finding his killer if it is convenient.” he stood up but Flippy stayed sitting.

“About that- I do need to get a statement from you about where you were the night of his death.”

“And what night was it that he died?” Steve paused.

“Night before last. Sorry, again. We just need to do this as procedure.” she said, taking out a notepad and pen.

“Well then I was here in my office until I went straight home. My secretary can confirm. Now will that be all?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Steve led her to the door and smiled once, tightly as she walked out.

The secretary was  at her desk hitting two keys repeatedly with great vigor. She didn’t notice Flippy who peered over her shoulder to see a robotic unicorn flying across her desktop screen with a rainbow behind it.

“Sorry to interrupt….” Flippy said dryly.

The girl closed the game and rolled her eyes, smiling at her.

“Don’t worry. The high scorer right now is some user named robjcollier and he’s like 1500 points ahead of me. I’m never gonna beat him!” she sighed. “What do you want?”

Flippy took out her notebook again. “Can you confirm your boss’s whereabouts on the night before last?”

She ran her tongue over her teeth and rolled her eyes around in her head, thinking.

“Hmmm. Well last night he was out. But the night before that he stayed late for work. Like, real late.”

Flippy tried not to sigh. “How late is ‘real late’…?”

“Oh atleast until 10:30 at night. That’s when I left. We both had extra work to catch up on.”

“Okie dokie.” Flippy said, sighing and shutting her notebook. A relatively solid alibi. The nerve of him.

\---

When Flippy walked back into the office, Are-are was turning slowly in her office chair, rolling a purple gel pen between her fingers and looked deep in thought.

“Are the little grey cells at work?” Flippy asked, calling attention to her prescence.

Are-are kicked her feet out and allowed the chair to do a full turn before planting her feet down, facing Flippy and fixing her with a dire look.

Flippy stopped in her tracks, a little taken aback by the serious expression on her face.

The red-head pursed her lips and then asked in a hushed, stern tone:

“Have you ever rubbed a toothbrush against a part of your body other than in your mouth….?”

Flippy squinted at her incredulously.

“What? No. I mean- I don’t think so?”

“Don’t you think it would feel really fucking weird?”

“I don’t know- maybe?” Flippy dropped her bag by her desk. “Isn’t it a little early in the day for those kind of deep philosophical questions?”

Are-are nodded slowly and conceded somberly, “You’re probably right. Mankind just isn’t ready to ponder something that abstract… So what did the brother say?”

“Solid alibi.”

“That bastard!”

“I know!”

Flippy pursed her lips and stared at the whiteboard in the center of the room.

“I’m hesitant to use this even though it would help us organize our facts… Croc and Nikki will see it.” she shrugged, “I’ll erase it afterwards.”

The woman walked to the whiteboard and began using magnets to tack photos up to it.

“And on the subject of Croc and Nikki- I think it’s fair to say this crime doesn’t have to do with Clink’s private life. It’s about business.” she talked as she put a picture of Clink Lavalle dead and face-up in the alleyway at the center of the board.

“Alright, so we’ve got Ricky ‘Clink’ Lavalle- the man with the keys to the city. Sans the keys, though. So obviously whoever killed him took them off of him. And that seems like the only logical motive for the murder.”

Are-are opened her mouth to say something but Flippy had her back to her and kept on talking.

“Shot with a handgun- close range. One bullet did it. But he didn’t die immediately- he had time to write out the number ‘57’ in his own blood on the pavement. That’s the victim. About the crime….”

Flippy opened up the manilla folder containing Vanya’s report.

“It happened around 11 P.M- which goes along with what the owners of the restaurant bordering the alleyway said. They didn’t see anyone but they heard arguing.”

Flippy leaned back on her heels, rocking back and forth slightly.

“Aaaand- weapon hasn’t been found yet. Probably ‘cause the guy took it with him to use again on some other hoodrat that owed him money or some shit…. It’d be great if we could find a weapon but I doubt we will.”

She frowned.   
“This city’s like a sieve… criminals fall through the cracks and we never hear from them again…” she said quietly, looking lost in thought as she gazed unseeing at the array of crime scene photos infront of her. “Finding the killers in crimes like this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. They blend right in with all the other scumbags and there’s too many scumbags to sift through in this town.”

She seemed to brush away the thought and turned on her heel, pursing her lips.

“But we do have a lead- Croc and Nikki are interested in this case. And whenever those two are involved, something shady’s going on and no mistake…. Remember all that cocaine that went missing from the evidence room?”

Are-are sucked in her upper lip, thinking.

“Things go missing from the evidence room all the time, though. I mean, just think of all that marijuana that went missing just a few weeks ago….” she trailed off and averted her eyes from Flippy, clearing her throat innocently. 

Flippy rolled her eyes and turned back to the whiteboard.

“We’ve got one other lead- Clink’s keys. They’re mostly storage and warehouses. I thought for sure that the number 57 was a warehouse number but… nothing checked out which sucks. But anyway- the fact that Clink’s keyring was probably the motive for the murder means that some warehouse or storage area somewhere in the city has something worth murdering for but….” Flippy made an aggravated noise, putting her face in her hands. “First of all we have no idea where it would be, we have no idea what it is, and we wouldn’t even know if something happened there! Whatever’s so important could’ve already been stolen out of the warehouse and we’d never know!”

Are-are stood up and gave Flippy a comforting pat on the back.

“Ohhhh, Flappers. We’ll solve the case. Don’t you worry.” She said, pulling her hands away from her face. “Let’s go for margaritas.”

Flippy’s face lit up.

“Ooh, you know me too well.”

So Flippy and Are-are went out for a drink and called it a night.

But they’d been correct- they wouldn’t know right away if something had been stolen from one of Clink’s warehouses. And something had been. While Are-are and Flippy were knocking back margaritas- someone else was paying the consequences for it.

 

 

 


	9. BREAKING/ENTERING

BREAKING AND ENTERING

 _The same afternoon_ ….

When Rob came back to his apartment from grocery shopping he knew something was wrong immediately. When he turned the handle on his door it was open. He’d locked it when he’d gone out. Immediately he let go of the door knob and took a step back, swallowing hard.

A variety of ideas came to mind. It could be whoever the cops had taken the drugs from- they’d found out where he lived and were here to rip through his apartment until they found out who he worked for. It could be _real_ cops- possibly tipped off from the woman who’d seen him outside the station- here to arrest him. Or someone else entirely.

Rob wasn’t stupid. Affable and goofy, yes. Stupid, no. The day after he’d agreed to the job he’d bought himself a handgun and started carrying it on his person at all times.

He set the grocery bag down silently by the door and pulled out the gun checking more out of nerves to make sure it was loaded even though he knew it was.

There was a chance that whoever had broken in was milling about in one of the rooms inside and might not notice him if he crept in quietly, so that was one option. There was also a chance that whoever it was would be waiting for him in the middle of the room so he should go in with a bang, guns blazing. Being of the more dramatic persuasion, Rob went with the second choice. He turned the knob, then kicked the door open and burst into the room with the gun held in front of him with two hands like something out of a _Die Hard_ film.

Nikki was sprawled over a chair with her suit jacket draped over her shoulders. She looked up at his entrance calmly but expectantly. Croc was sitting with her ass on his kitchen counter and her feet dangling over the side, a lit cigarette hanging from her lips.

“Afternoon, Robbie.” Nikki said coolly as if she didn’t have a gun pointed at her.

Rob didn’t lower his weapon. Another thing he wasn’t too stupid to figure out. He was the outside help brought in to help two crooked cops move drugs. It was unimaginable to him that they’d be happy to just pay him off and let him go on his merry way knowing what they were up to. He was a liability. He kicked the door shut behind him without moving the muzzle of his gun or altering his gaze.

“You broke into my house.” he stated as a fact rather than question, keeping his voice even.

Nikki chuckled. “What’s a few padlocks between friends?”

Rob took a deep breath through his nose and flicked back the safety on the gun.

“Or a few bullets?” he said.

Nikki frowned and clicked her tongue. “Well, look who’s the tough guy now.”

Croc took a drag off her cigarette and flicked some ash into his sink.

Rob swallowed hard but he wasn’t going to let his anxiety show even though the gun felt like it weighed a ton in his hands. _You’re in a movie. This is your scene. Pretend it’s a fake gun._

“I don’t want any trouble. I just want the money.” he kept his tone even but firm. Talking slowly and enunciating kept the shake out of his voice. In acting class they probably would’ve called it dramatic effect. “Just give me the money and you never have to see me again…”

His eyes flickered momentarily between them and he broke character. “….if you don’t want to.” he added, his tone softer. He focused his eyes back on Nikki who was closest and therefore his target.

She stood up slowly and Rob took two steps back automatically even though he was the one holding the gun. Nikki had her hand in her pocket and took two steps forward. There was something of a swagger in her walk. She moved like a panther- slow and purposeful.

“What are you planning to do with that?” she laughed once, her eyebrows flicking up, “Shoot me?”

She wrapped her hand around his wrist, and smashed her shoulder against his chest, throwing him back against the wall as she wrestled the gun from his grip. 

His finger had barely even touched the trigger. He couldn’t shoot them. Not really. He tried to hold onto the gun but her nails scraped hard against his skin and she pulled his fingers back at a bad angle. He winced, letting go, before she broke something.

She smiled smugly. “You are in possession of an illegal firearm, Robbie. It’s my duty as an officer of the law to confiscate this.”

Nikki wrapped her hand around his neck and slammed him back against the wall again with such force that the back of his head bounced off it and his teeth shook in his skull. Her palm pressed down hard on his adam’s apple and he choked.

“Croc- help!” he blurted out.

“It doesn’t look like she needs my help.” Croc responded from across the room, lighting another cigarette.

“I meant ME!” Rob snapped incredulously.

Nikki let go of him all the same and walked back to where she’d been sitting before, laying the gun on the table.

Rob coughed, putting his hand to his neck. “Seriously what the _fuck_ is wrong with you two?! It’s like bad cop, badder cop.”

“We’ve got a problem.” Croc said.

“Yeah- mental problems. Several of them.” he snapped back.

“We came over for tea and you pulled a gun on us!”

“When people come over for tea they don’t break into the house!”

“Can you two shut the fuck up?” Nikki asked, “Would that be at all possible?”

They both snapped their mouths shut.

“The guy who got us the warehouse where the drugs are is lying in our morgue with a bullet hole in his chest. He had the original key to our place on him but they’ve been taken- most likely by his killer. And his dying message was writing the number of our warehouse- 57- by his body in his own blood.” Nikki explained.

She sighed and sat down on Rob’s couch.

“The case isn’t ours. Two other officers got it before us. But it’s _gotta_ be O’Hanlen that did him in. So he could steal back his drugs. If the other officers start snooping around they could find out what we’re up to while they’re digging. We’re finished if that happens.” 

Rob processed what she was saying. Then he laughed once. 

“Then you two are in the shit and no mistake.” he said, still laughing, a bit maliciously. He stopped and twisted his mouth into a cruel smirk. “But I don’t really see what that’s got to do with me.”

There was a tense pause. Croc flicked her lighter twice, watching the flame, before speaking up in a straight forward tone:

“Flippy saw you unloading boxes from the back. Then 100 kilos cocaine goes missing from the evidence room. Nobody saw **_us_** , Rob. Just **_you_**. It’d be the easiest thing in the world to frame you up for this.” She hopped off the counter and walked over to the center of the room.

He could practically feel the color drain from his face. Now real panic was starting to form like a block of ice in his stomach.

Nikki whistled under her breath and grinned. “Now _there’s_ a plan. How do you fancy prison food, Robbie?”

He made a lunge towards his gun but in a flash it was in Croc’s hand and she’d grabbed him by the throat, knocked him onto his back and was sitting astride his chest with the gun forced underneath his chin.

“Don’t fuck about.” she growled.

Rob knew he looked pathetic. At this point it was go big or go home. He trembled his lower lip slightly and blinked up at her, his brows knit together and let his eyes fill up with unshed tears.

Acting classes paid off.

Her expression softened and he saw doubt flicker across her face.

“But… we’re not going to do that.” Croc sighed, lowering her gun.

“We’re not? You had me pretty convinced.” Nikki scoffed.

“No…” Croc said but she was clearly thinking as she spoke. “It’s not all gone to shit yet…. There’s no need to take it that far.”

She stood up, shoving the gun into the back of her pants. Rob stayed on the ground seeing his life flashing before his eyes like a boring movie.

“The next 24 hours are critical though. If Are-are and Flippy find the warehouse then there might be trouble. But they’re morons so there’s a good chance we’ll be fine.” Croc said. “But that’s what we need Rob for.”

Rob sat up upon hearing his name, glaring at her suspiciously.

“Wanna make a few extra bucks?”

 

 


	10. MUMBLING

MUMBLING

 _While Flippy and Are-are knocked back margaritas_ ….

Massino only smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and he rolled them so thin that they looked like lollipop sticks. It bothered Nikki slightly to watch him. His big hands- fingers the size and shape of sausages, gripping that tiny little cigarette and bringing it to his uncomfortably full lips.

His warehouses were all outside of the city, very well lit, and very large. Rob had been able to drive the van directly into it to unload. It made Nikki feel like she was at an abandoned Home Depot…

This time Rob didn’t have to lift a finger to move as Massino already had his private army waiting with him there- men to unload the drugs, men to stand guard at the door, men to stand guard around Massino. His own apostles. Thuggish, dirty, mean looking, apostles.

Nikki was flustered now and she wasn’t a person easily flustered. She wanted nothing more than this deal to be over so she could use some of her vacation days to get the hell out of town until the murder case blew over. Croc’s attendance at work was so inconsistent anyway that whenever she went missing for a few weeks it was barely noticed. And once Rob had some money even he could afford to split town. They’d all be fine as soon as the night was over. That’s what Nikki kept reminding herself the entire drive.

“Don’t talk to Massino. I’ll deal with him.” Nikki had told Croc and Rob as the three of them had driven over to Massino’s warehouse.

“And **_you_** don’t even ** _look_** at Massino, Rob.” Croc had warned seriously.

Now as Nikki threw a glance over her shoulder she saw that both of them were doing as they were told- the two were standing by the warehouse door: Croc silent with her arms crossed over her chest and Rob looking down at the floor with his hands in his pockets. _Smart man_ , Nikki thought.

She turned back to Massino. Massino and his tiny cigarette had his eyes on one of his thugs who was sampling the coke. He gave his boss a thumbs up and a goofy grin. Massino blew a tiny curl of smoke from between his thick lips and turned to Nikki, giving a small nod of satisfaction.

“I’m glad to see you keep your end of the bargain.” he mumbled.

“Now you keep yours.” Nikki replied curtly.

“Ah.” he said.

Nikki’s blood ran cold. **_‘Ah’?_** That was never the beginning of something good. And with a quick scan of her eyes over the nearly empty warehouse she realized that in the whole oversized square of a room there was no money- no briefcase, no nothing.

“I don’t have it yet.” Massino said.

If someone else had had the nerve to say they didn’t have the money to Nikki, it wouldn’t have been in the voice Massino used. They would’ve been sobbing with snot dribbling down their face. Massino said it with utter calm.

Nikki herself was having a hard time keeping _her_ voice steady. She could feel the weight of her gun in it’s holster by her side.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t have it yet? You said you’d have it. You said seven days. This is it.”  

Massino actually shrugged his shoulders. He flicked his little child-sized cigarette to the floor and pressed the toe of his leather shoe on it delicately.

“I don’t have it.”

“Then you don’t have the drugs either! Come on, get those monkeys to throw the coke back in the van.” She snapped, gesturing to his men who didn’t move a muscle. Nobody in the room moved a muscle. Nikki felt as if the scene had been frozen around her with only her own heartbeat still in motion.

“Really? You’re going to take the drugs back? And put them back where? Warehouse 57?” Massino said in his voice which never rose higher than a whisper.

Nikki’s mouth snapped shut.

“Because I’ve heard there’s been some trouble. A murder?” he clicked his tongue, shaking his head, “That sounds very messy. How tiresome for you. I’ve heard a bit more about it than that but… the fact remains, you won’t likely be wanting to go back to that storage space, would you? Not when the police are on the hunt for the meaning of that poor, dead, man’s dying message.”

Her muscles felt taught. She swallowed.

“How do you know about that?”

He giggled- not a laugh but a true giggle, like a schoolgirl might make.

“Oh- do you think the two of you are my only friends in the police force? No, no.”

“Did you kill him…?” she asked quietly.

Massino looked her in the eye. His eyes were beady and watery. They were so small compared to the rest of his face.

“If I’d killed him, I would’ve had your drugs yesterday and we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.”

She swallowed.

“I don’t think **_you_** killed him either.” Massino went on, catching her attention once more. “But this case has a great importance to me.”

He sighed and ran his hand over the bald center of his head.

“It’s a bit embarassing to share. But I too had something valuable stored in one of Clink’s warehouses in the city. A great deal of money. And last night it was stolen.”

He took a step forward and Nikki was tempted to take a step back but stood her ground. You always had to stand your ground with men like him.

“Whoever stole it got the keys off Clink’s dead body, isn’t that right?” Massino smiled a tiny, impish smile, “If you want me to keep my end of the bargain and pay you for these goods, I only have one simple request- that you do your job. And find his killer. So that I can get my money back.”

Nikki couldn’t believe how thoroughly everything was going to shit.

“I’ll just take back the drugs- sell them to someone else. Y-you can’t start making new clauses in our agreement!” she stammered, embarassed at herself but feeling backed into a corner. Hell if she was going to take this lying down.

Massino laughed his girlish laugh again that grated against her nerves.

“Sell them to who? To Seamus O’Hanlen? I don’t think he’ll take kindly to having his own stolen cocaine sold back to him. And there’s no one else in the city who can offer as high a price as me or him.”

“This implicates me and my partner. If we stick around long we’ll get caught.” Nikki tried to explain between gritted teeth.

“Then I suppose you better solve the case fast before you do.”

“It’s not my case. It was given to two other cops. They won’t share information with us.”

“You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you can do anything you put your mind to.”

Nikki took a deep breath through her nose.

“You don’t have any choice here,” Massino said as he took two more steps forward- until she could breathe in his scent- he smelled like tobacco and marischino cherries- “So get me back my money. And you can have of it what I owe you.”

He gave her a brief pat on the shoulder that made her cringe.

His lips were turned up in a thoroughly unpleasant smile.

“I think our business for tonight is concluded then.” he looked over Nikki’s shoulder, “And it seems your friends are getting antsy to leave.”

Nikki threw a look over her shoulder and saw that in the distance on the other side of the warehouse (because the building was fucking big enough for the other side of it to be ‘in the distance’) that Croc seemed to be picking a fight with one of Massino’s guards.

Nikki gave Massino a final smouldering look. Hoping she could convey with her eyes the ‘fuck you very much for all this’ attitude she was feeling but even Nikki with all her boldness wouldn’t say aloud. She turned on her heel and stalked over to the door where Rob looked up expectantly.

“All good?” he asked.

Nikki resisted the urge to punch him because she knew that would be unfairly projecting anger on an innocent bystander. She’d save her anger for an innocent bystander who was useless to her and less attractive.

She ignored him instead and turned to Croc who was glaring daggers at Massino’s guard.

“Keep your fucking pitbull on a leash, eh, Nikki?” the man growled, curling his lip.

“Can’t I leave you alone for 5 minutes?” Nikki drawled, uninterested.

“I just asked who your pretty boy was. Haven’t seen him around in these slums.” the man shot a suspicious look at Rob who avoided his glance tactfully.

“And I told you that if you so much as looked at him I’d rip your spine out and beat you with it. I don’t see where the confusion is.” Croc bit back between gritted teeth.

Nikki rolled her eyes. She really didn’t want to have to put up with this nonsense on top of everything else. She wasn’t looking forward to having to inform Croc and Rob that they had no money and that their nice little vacation outside of the city to lay low was being cancelled.

“Forget him. Let’s go.” Nikki sighed. Croc begrudgingly shot the man a last warning glance and got back in the van with Rob. Nikki began to follow them but paused infront of Massino’s guard.

“Ah- but for the record, a pissant like you has no right to even look at any of our group- even our errand boy. And your voice is grating on my nerves. So if you ever talk to me again I’ll cut your head off.” she added calmly before getting in the van and driving off.

 


	11. HEAVY HANDED TACTICS

HEAVY HANDED TACTICS

“Don’t you ever wonder if this city air is bad for you? I mean, don’t you feel like we should be out getting actual fresh air?”

“Says the person who smokes.” Flippy said, flicking her cigarette out the open patrolcar window.

“No, but like, this is what Cam keeps saying- is that the city and all the people and the smoggy sky sucks the life out of you and we need to go on more walks through the forest.” Are-are explained, taking a long, noisy, slurp from a neon pink slushie.

“I don’t believe in exercise.” Flippy remarked haughtily.

Across the street from the patrolcar, a tan, beat up, chevy pulled up to the sidewalk and parked.

“Those guys look like they’re up to no good.”

They watched apathetically as three thugs got out of a beat up car across the street from them. Then they watched them lean back into the car to retrieve something. Are-are took another sip of her slushie.

“Is that a gun?” she asked calmly.

“Oh- yeah. All three of them look armed.” Are-are responded with a small nod.

“Ah- they’re aiming at us.”

“We should probably duck down or something.”

Flippy sighed. Are-are took a last sip of her drink. The two cops forced themselves down, covering their heads with their hands just as the street exploded with noise and the windows of the car shattered, spraying glass down on them.

**_5 Minutes Earlier. Across the street._ **

Roscoe was having a hard time seeing with one eye swollen shut and bruised purple.

“That them?” his friend asked him, squinting. “You sure?”

“Well they’re two chicks in a cop car so it’s gotta be them!” Roscoe spat back irritably.

The biggest of the four men in the car, Tony, leaned forward from the back seat and put a meaty hand on Roscoe’s shoulder.

“And you’re sure you didn’t tell them anything, right?”

Roscoe licked his lips nervously.

**_Four hours earlier…._ **

Roscoe lay belly down in an alleyway with his wrists handcuffed behind his back and a female cop sitting on his back making it very difficult to breathe and even harder to move. But this female cop was not Flippy nor was it Are-are because neither of them were in the habit of handcuffing people and beating the tar out of them and sitting on them on a regular basis in dark alleyways. But Croc, on the other hand, was in that habit. She was smoking a cigarette and everytime she tapped ash from the end of it, it would land on the bare skin of his arm, burning his skin just enough to make him flinch. Croc wasn’t the worst of his problems.

Roscoe just kept staring at the finely made italian shoes pacing back and forth infront of his face, scuffing against the pavement.

“Roscoe, you haven’t exactly been helpful to me and my associate. We asked you for information on your boss several minutes ago and we are women who do not like to be kept waiting.”

Roscoe was sweating because his boss was “slaughterhouse” O’Hanlen and neither he nor anyone with half a brain to their name would want to be on his bad side. But on the other hand, O’Hanlen wasn’t there at that moment and O’Hanlen wasn’t playing with a butterfly knife infront of him the way the one with the slicked back hair and the suit was as she paced.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about. What the hell do you want from me?!” Roscoe could play stupid well because it didn’t require much playing for him.

Nikki stooped in front of him, trailing the edge of her blade across his cheek.

“We want to know if O’Hanlen had a very magical and extensive keyring come into his possession recently.” she said smiling, “And where he’s keeping it and maybe even how to get it.”

“You don’t ask for much, do ya?” Roscoe scoffed incredulously.

“Oh but it’s nothing in comparison to what we’ll give you in return.” Nikki said, grinning.

“And what’s that?” he asked suspiciously.

“In return you don’t have to get sent to the morgue in pieces.” Croc piped up, gripping him by the back of the head and smashing his face down on the pavement once. When she pulled his head back up he was staring down the blade of Nikki’s butterfly knife.

“I-I don’t know about any keys… Honestly, I don’t.”

“Well I guess that’s to be expected. If O’Hanlen made an idiot like you privy to **_all_** his secrets I don’t think I’d have even an ounce of respect for him. But surely you can cough up **_some_** information that can be of use to us.” Nikki said amiably.

“You better or you’ll be coughing up your interal organs instead.” Croc added, flicking her spent cigarette onto the other side of the alley, rocking her weight back so it was settled on the middle of his spine painfully.  

“You think I’ll tell you anything? And get killed by O’Hanlen? Fat chance.” Roscoe said, mustering up the last of his dwindling courage.

“Once O’Hanlen knows we interrogated you he’s either going to think you ratted on him or he’s going to trust you. But what he thinks has nothing to do with if you **_actually_** rat on him. So you might as well tell us everything you know before we mutilate you.” Nikki explained with a shrug.

“He… O’Hanlen… h-he’s religious.”

“Everyone knows that.”

“He has a priest that comes to visit him every week in wherever he’s hiding out. Every Saturday night he sends a note to the church on Montgomery Street. Then the priest comes so O’Hanlen can do confession.” the words were spilling out now, like a bodily fluid.

Nikki pursed her lips. “He must have a lot of faith.”

“He was raised strict Catholic. Even reads the bible all the time. But he uses Lamentations for rolling paper.” Roscoe said, licking his lips and tasting his own sweat on them.

“Well that’s cool but it doesn’t help us too much. Where does O’Hanlen keep things that are important?”

Roscoe’s eyes swam in their sockets as he tried to avoid looking at Nikki.

“Uhhhh… I don’t know…”

She sighed.

“Well, Roscoe. That information was a little helpful I guess. So I guess I’ll let you choose- which do you want to keep…” she ran the blade gently across his face again, not enough to burst the skin. “…your nose, or your tongue…?”

“I-I really don’t know where he’d keep something important!” Roscoe stammered, his breath coming out in ragged pants.

“C’mon, Roscoe. We know you’ve got more for us and then you can leave without a scratch on you.” Nikki cooed.

He didn’t bring up that he was already bruised and probably sporting a sprained wrist. He shook his head, sealing his lips up tight.

“Your mama’s gonna cry when she sees what we’ve done to you, Roscoe. You really want that?” Croc asked, giving his hair a firm tug.

He whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut.

“O-okay! I’ll tell you!”

**_Back to the car, where Roscoe is under the scrutiny of his peers…._ **

“Course I didn’t tell ‘em anything, Tony. You think I’d do that?” he laughed nervously. Tony squinted at him, rubbing his chin.

“Yeah… you might be too dumb to be dishonest.” he agreed. “But I guess we still gotta kill these chicks. Feel kinda bad taking pot shots at two girls though…”

“Trust me. You don’t need to feel bad when it’s **_these_** girls.” Roscoe said gravely.

Tony shrugged.

“Okay, then. Boys! All out.”

Back to the present moment…

“Um- do you have any plans?” Are-are asked, hands still over her head.

“Not really. I mean, I was thinking I might go get Mexican for dinner lately but other than that, no plans.” Flippy responded, shouting to be heard over the raging gunfire. She sighed. “Damn this is getting really annoying. And they’re ruining our car!”

Flippy fished around in the seat and finally pulled out a gun. She kicked the door open and already beign full of holes it fell out easily enough. She leaned out the side and closing one eye, leveled the gun in the direction of the shooters and hit the shoulder of one of them with one neat pull of the trigger. He fell down, dropping his gun.

“Ooh, nice one, eagle eyes.” Are-are said, “Didn’t I have a gun here somwhere?”

“Damn, he’s getting back up.” Flippy muttered under her breath. She fired again and there was a muffled cry. “Yeah he ain’t getting back up again now…. Take that, sucker.”

 One of the thugs started straight for the car, nearly jumping over the front bumper to aim his gun into the already broken windsheild. Are-are screamed, lunging over Flippy’s lap and shoving her leg between Flippy’s to hit the gas. The car jumped forward with a lurch. The thug with freshly broken ribs flew backwards before Flippy slammed her own foot on the brake.

“Don’t just hit people!”

“They started it! I’m finishing it!”

Are-are rolled out of the car, gun in hand, looking around.

“Hey, you! Douchebag! You’re under arrest! Get on the ground! Ass in the air!”

“Oh, did they change the miranda rights again? I must not have got the memo.” Flippy muttered, rolling her eyes and also stepping out of the car. Of the three men, the one Flippy had shot had managed to crawl away leaving a long trail of blood on the street, one lay incapacitated from being hit by their car, and one Roscoe was lying on the ground with his hands over his head. He looked up, wincing and then realization and confusion dawned on his face.

 


	12. ON A MISSION FROM GOD

ON A MISSION FROM GOD

 

“You’re out of your fucking minds.” Rob laughed incredulously. Incredulously, but nervously because Nikki had her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her mouth set in a determined line.

“You don’t really have the right to say no anymore. Your ass is on the line same as ours if we don’t get those keys, remember?” she snapped.

Rob looked at Nikki with his mouth hanging open and when she didn’t flinch, looked helplessly at Croc who was smoking quietly with her feet up on his counter.

“B-but” he finally continued weakly, “O’Hanlen? Slaughterhouse O’Hanlen? Why are we picking a fight with him?!”

Nikki released a frustrated growling noise.

“How many times do I have to fucking explain? If anyone had a motive to steal from Massino it was O’Hanlen. And after questioning that chump who works for O’Hanlen, we know where he would be hiding Clink’s keys if he has them.”

“and it’s not picking a fight.” Croc interjected. “Me and Nikki bursting in- **_that_** would be a fight. But if **_you_** go in, and pretend to be someone he can trust-“

“No.” Rob said firmly. “I’m not fucking impersonating a priest.”

Nikki threw her hands up. “You’re so fucking useless!”

“I’m not even religious but I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of mortal sin that gets you sent directly to hell.” Rob said, shaking his head.

“Oh, great. A coke junkie with morals. ‘Cause we need that about as much as we need a shot in the head.” Croc grumbled.

“Rob, it’s not impersonating.” Nikki explained patiently after taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of her nose. “It’s just… acting. And you’re an actor. So fucking **_act_**.”

Rob winced.

“Ok… but… let’s say I pretend to be a priest. We know what day O’Hanlen is expecting a priest but how do we avoid it just being me and the real priest showing up at the same time?”

Croc cracked her knuckles. “Oh, we’ll take care of the other priest.”

Rob’s mouth dropped open once more. “You can not be serious.”

“Oh, shut up.” Nikki muttered, “We’ll do all the hard work. You should be **_happy_** to know we’re going to hell too. We’ll keep you company in the afterlife.”

“Why would that make me happy?! I don’t even want you to keep me company in **_this_** life! Stop fucking breaking into my apartment!”

“Rob, that’s hurtful.” Nikki sighed.

“You always bust in wanting me to do something dangerous and you keep eating all my food.” Rob said bitterly.

Nikki opened a second bag of potato chips and placed one in her mouth. She sighed and shook her head before leaning forward across the table and placing her hand on his arm. It was admittedly hard to look away when she hit him with those big brown eyes.

“Rob… we need you. You’re the only one who can do this.”

Rob sighed. “You’re getting salt and vinegar on me.”

“What?”

“Your hand. It’s covered in potato crumbs.”

-

Rob wasn’t sure why he was doing this anymore. He’d been shot at, even skimmed by a bullet, been knocked around, threatened with prison time, and nearly arrested so many times in less than a month. He thought it must have some adverse side effect to his health- his blood pressure? Is that what gets all fucked up when you’re under too much stress? Something like that.

What was he doing here?

“What am I doing here?” Rob groaned.

He was in the process of being undressed by Nikki but not at all in the way he would’ve liked.

“Are you dim? We explained all this before.” Nikki said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I wasn’t really asking you as much as I was just sort of…” he gestured weakly to the ceiling. “Asking God ‘why me’?”

 “You’ll be looking for a bible.” Nikki reminded him now as she strapped the velcro of the bulletproof vest she’d put on him. “A bible with its center cut out so that there’s space to hold small objects. If we’re right, there will be a ring of keys inside.”

Rob wondered how long they’d had to torture O’Hanlen’s man before he’d coughed that information up. He almost felt sorry for the bloke. Nikki and Croc were terrifying to him and they were on the same side more or less, he shivered to think what it would be like to be their enemy.

“Listen…” Nikki said, lowering her voice and putting her hand gently on Rob’s bare upper arm. “I’m sorry we’re making you do this.”

Rob rolled his eyes. “Sure.”

Nikki’s lips quirked up in the hint of a smile free of smugness for once and for a moment she looked so beautiful Rob could’ve leaned up and kissed her. Then he remembered she’d probably break his nose if he tried it.

“I mean it.” she assured, looking into his eyes. “Me or Croc would’ve done this but…”

“I know.” Rob mumbled, nodding once and Nikki’s face changed almost imperceptibly- relief maybe.

Somewhere in the city, at the church Seamus O’Hanlen had called earlier in the week, there was a Catholic father tied up in a back room to ensure he would miss his appointment. They **_could’ve_** bribed him but…. money doesn’t grow on trees.

“We’ll keep you safe, though. Even after you go in.” Croc added from the other side of the room. “Call us on your cellphone and we’ll be there in an instant to get you out.”

Nikki smoothed her hands once over his chest. He could feel the light pressure of her palms through the thickness of the bulletproof vest. She smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at him.

“Ready to get into costume?”

-

O’Hanlen’s hideout was a shit hole. Plastic siding that was broken and peeled in more places than it was intact, and a roof with atleast one giant, visible, hole in it. The windows were boarded up and the scarce patches of grass between the house and the sidewalk were crawling with ugly weeds.

Rob felt like he was going to vomit and he hadn’t even rung the doorbell yet. He could feel the emergency cellphone in his pocket and ran his fingertips over it to comfort himself as he raised his other hand to the door. The bell made a horrific, metallic, clanging noise and in a moment Rob could hear people moving about and speaking inside before the door opened a crack, and the barrel of a shotgun poked out, a face above it shadowed in the tiny space of the partially open door.

Rob immediately raised his hands above his head in surrender.

“What the fuck was that noise?” a gravelly voice said from inside the door.

“… the doorbell?” Rob answered lamely.

Silence from the other end. Finally: “… no one’s ever rung the doorbell before.”

Rob cleared his throat.

“A-are you Mr.O’Hanlen?” Rob said. He adjusted the clerical collar around his neck nervously. It felt itchy and was chafing against the freshly shaved skin. He was trying to speak in his best American accent- he thought he’d be too easy to track if he gave his real accent away.

“Fuck no.” the man on the other side of the door said.

“Oh- well- I thought this was his address.” Rob stammered, hoping the plan hadn’t already gone to shit.

The other man was quiet again.

“Y’here to hear the boss’s confession?”

Rob forced a smile. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or dissapointed to know that he’d got the right address.

“Yes, that’s right. Can I come in?”

The door slowly opened. The man behind it, still holding the shotgun, was about five feet tall and looked like he’d never taken a bath in his entire life. He squinted at Rob with jaundice eyes.

“You’re not father Kenny.” he said.

“I know.” Rob answered stupidly and the two stared at eachother in silence for a few seconds. “H-he’s ill. Father Kenny is ill. He sent me in his place. I’m father Connor, his friend.” he finally finished.

The man looked at him warily but lowered the shotgun and took a step back, silently inviting him in with a slight jerk of his head. Rob entered the house and was assaulted by the heaviness of the air. The house was one floor and small, with few windows, and it seemed the entire claustrophobic area was a hot box of smoke and the smell of dirty socks and stale pizza. Where they stood was a small ‘living room’ type area, though it seemed far from anything that a person could live in. A larg amount of the smoke seemed to be coming from one man sitting on a beaten up couch (the couch looked as if it might’ve been floral print once but it was hard to tell when there were as many bodily fluid stains on it as there were flowers) smoking a crack pipe. There was a girl passed out next to him. There was a small tv that the other man in the room was staring at with a vacant expression, his mouth lolling open. And on the floor were littered dozens of shoe boxes, all over flowing with cash…

“And will you be accepting payment the same way as father Kenny?” the dirty little man with the shot gun asked, snapping Rob’s attention back to him.

“Uh. Yes?”

The man fetched a shoebox, rifling through it and counting out a stack of hundred bills and handed it to Rob. Rob ran his thumb across the corners, trying not to betray his surprised delight. If he got out of this alive, he might have enough money to skip town even without the pay off from Massino.

“And the rest too?” the man asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Uh- yeah, ‘course.” Rob answered and was handed a small bag of cocaine. _Doing the lord’s work has good payoffs._

“O’Hanlen’s through there. Lemme tell him ya’ve come.” the man said, crossing the room to go through another door and shutting it behind him. Rob waited and peered around. The two junkies on the couch weren’t paying any attention to him- they had those dead fish eyes that didn’t take in their surroundings.

“You can come in.”

There was a short hallway to where O’Hanlen was, and at the end of it was a curtain of hanging beads that caught the sunlight filtering through one small window, close to the ceiling. The door to the living room clicked shut behind him, the man with the yellow eyes gone behind it. Rob parted the curtain and was relieved to find that this room smelled slightly better than the last. Though smoke still hung heavy in the air like a haze. There was a matress pressed up against wall with no sheets on it and next to it were several empty bottles and a full ashtray. Rob’s eyes immediately flicked to the desk pressed against one side of the wall. It looked like something that had been stolen and broken in several attempts to move it into the house- it was covered in papers and shoe boxes- some of them spilling money and duct taped bags over the tops. And behind the desk was a small, dilapidated bookshelf with a large assortment of weather beaten books.

The one window was the only light source. And the light from it cast the shadow of a tall, wiry, man standing facing the wall.

All of the people he’d met so far- all the drug dealers and criminals and crooked cops had something about them that was almost inhumanly predatory. It seemed to almost eminate like an aura around them. An aura of danger. He felt it with Nikki too, who was a panther dressed up in a suit and lipstick, and with Croc whose black leather clothes just seemed like a natural extension of a reptilian skin. It was like they belonged to a different species than him.

O’Hanlen- _Slaughterhouse_ , he reminded himself mentally-  was like some sort of war beaten predator. His body was eerily thin, his limbs too long and his bones protruding everywhere. The clothes that hung off of him were nothing but rags- the wife beater was grease stained and ill fitting, the jeans shredded and hanging down past his hips, kept only in place by a fraying leather belt. His back, still turned to Rob, was a motley map of brown freckles that immediately reminded Rob of a sea turtle’s skin. And the man’s hair was like a messy, dirty, halo of red that looked nearly aflame in the light.

He turned halfway, blowing a flume of smoke between his lips and not raising his eyes to look at Rob.

“Father Kenny is sick you said…?” he finally spoke. He tapped his cigarette, the ash falling onto the discolored carpet.

“That’s right. I’m sorry he didn’t call in advance, it came on rather suddenly.” because the sickness was Croc and Nikki koshing him over the head with a blunt instrument and locking his body up in a vestibule.

“And what is your name, father…?” the man turned and looked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and tinged with yellow and his face, while not old, was creased with lines and dotted with light scars and freckles. His jawline was covered in a fuzz of ginger colored stubble that in some places seemed to grow longer than in others. He had an arresting glare, his eyes didn’t move once they’d made contact with Rob’s, and they didn’t blink.

“I’m father Connor.” he said, swallowing his fear at the intense gaze. He was doing this for the money. And because Croc and Nikki would probably kill him if he didn’t. Messing up wasn’t an option.

“Is that an Irish name? You Irish, father?” O’Hanlen was walking now. His body moved languidly, overly long arms swaying lightly at his sides. He blew smoke out of the corner of his lips as he walked, circling Rob like a shark. Everytime he said ‘father’ it seemed nearly satirical. O’Hanlen was clearly older than Rob by several years and the way his voice spoke the word made it sound more like ‘boy’.

“My mother’s Irish.” he said. It wasn’t a lie.

“I’ve never been to Ireland.” the man said, taking a sharp inhale on his cigarette. “Most of the cock suckers who run in these ‘Irish’ mobs haven’t even been to Ireland. And they have these shamrock tattoos. What’s that about? It’s fucking disrespectful is what it is.”

He blew smoke out and came to stand directly in front of Rob.

“I’ve only got one tattoo. Y’know what it is?”

Rob shook his head.

“I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears.” O’Hanlen said solemnly.

“Um. Cool.” Rob said flatly while wondering at how eery it was that the words of a cut throat gangster could remind him of some pretentious hipster type he saw at Starbucks.

O’Hanlen’s sharp eyes flicked across him again, up and down, studying every detail of Rob’s appearance with a neutral expression.

“So… should we start?” Rob finally said. “I’d… I’d like it if you could sit down.” He gestured to the mattress on the floor which looked like it had an infestation of mice at the very least.

O’Hanlen flopped back on the mattress, stretching out his long legs in front of him and picking up a half finished joint still releasing fine wisps of smoke from an ashtray on the floor. He sucked in from it deeply until the rest burned away and held the smoke in his lungs before exhaling it in a long puff like a dragon.

“Would you… I’m sorry, but…” Rob began to stammer, because this is where the tricky part of the plan was. “Would you mind closing your eyes?”

O’Hanlen stared at him.

“I’m used to doing confession with people on the other side of a screen. I… I don’t know if I feel uncomfortable looking into your eyes. I want you to feel like you’re talking to God.” Rob stammered out, his hands twitching toward the emergency cellphone in his pocket nervously.

O’Hanlen looked him in the eye warily and for a moment he thought he would say no. But then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath through his nose and made the sign of the cross over his chest.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. My last confession was seven days ago.”

Rob walked on tip toes to the desk on the side of the room.

“It’s a bible” is what Nikki had explained to him over and over. “That’s where he keeps valuable things. There’s a bible with the center of the pages cut out so it’s a compartment. If Clink’s keys are with O’Hanlen, then that’s where they are. He doesn’t trust any of his lackeys enough to leave the keys with them and the bible is the one thing no one else touches.”

Rob tried to fish through the shoeboxes as gingerly as he could, making as little noise as possible. He hoped O’Hanlen had enough sins to list to sustain the time it would take to search.

“Four days ago, I killed a young woman. I did it with my bare hands. I strangled the life out of her. I’d never even met this woman before. She was the lover of someone who double crossed me. I killed her to punish him. And to confirm that he was double crossing me.”

Rob couldn’t see the bible anywhere on the desk and went to the bookcase, running his fingertip along the spines of the books quickly, but not finding what he needed.

“I pulled off all her fingernails on one hand… one by one… They were… pink.” O’Hanlen continued wistfully.

Rob kneeled down behind the desk and carefully- very carefully, tried to pry the bottom drawer open. It wasn’t locked and it began to slide open but it made a slight noise- a light sound of wood scraping against wood. He opened it a few inches and squinted into the darkness. There were some papers but the drawer was mostly empty- no bible.

“She kept screaming. But I didn’t feel sorry even though I knew I was hurting her. Sometimes I wonder if everyone is deserving of God’s light. I don’t think everyone deserves to live on his earth. I don’t think she did. She was a whore.”

Rob began working the next drawer open, very slowly but this one squeeked loudly and he froze. He peaked over the top of the desk but O’Hanlen was still sitting in a nearly zen position on the mattress with his legs spread in front of him and his hands folded in his lap. Rob allowed himself to exhale and went back to looking into the drawer. Still nothing.

“After I killed her, me and my bretherin cut up her body in the garage. And we gave her chopped off, nail-less, fingers to her boyfriend- the double crosser. We wanted him to know that she’d suffered. We wanted him to know that in her final moments she’d betrayed him to us.”

Rob pulled open the third drawer and kept pulling until it was fully open. Inside was a plastic baggy of cocaine on top of a thick, worn, hardback copy of The Bible. Rob picked it up reverently and opened it up. Sure enough there was a rectangular compartment cut out of the middle.

But all that was inside was an old locket curled up in the corner of the space and a wad of money. There was no set of keys, though they easily could’ve fit. Rob squinted, hoping if he’d look long enough they’d magically appear. He thought he shouldn’t care, he’d done what had been asked of him, but his first reaction was he felt badly that he couldn’t find what Nikki and Croc needed. He didn’t know what he’d expect even if he had found it- for them to pat him on the head and tell him he was a good boy? Was that what he wanted? They’d probably make a joke and then ignore him again until they needed something else life threatening to be done.

Rob shut the book and paused. He hadn’t heard O’Hanlen speak in a while.

“Looking for something, father?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh so this is one of the chapters i've been wanting to write since I first started thinking about this prequel so I'm exicted to finally write it. However it came out long so I've cut it into two parts. I think people comment less on long fics/chapters hehe....


	13. BACK UP

Rob had managed to take cover in O’Hanlen’s bathroom but the door was being slammed against repeatedly by the mad man outside it.

It was the worst possible outcome. And worst possible outcomes meant calling Nikki and Croc on his disposable cell phone.

“Get out of there!” was the advice they gave as soon as he explained what happened, quickly with barely a breath between, and over the sounds of O’Hanlen yelling and smashing his fists against the door.

“I can’t!”

“You’re on the first floor, aren’t you? Jump out the window, you dipshit!”Nikki’s voice.   
“There is no window in here!”

The weak door was bending under the pressure of O’Hanlen’s kicks, the lock and handle rattling dangerously until finally with a snap it caved in and O’Hanlen’s face- contorted and red with fury was glaring at him.

“Oh shit….” Rob choked out against the phone before it dropped from his trembling fingers onto his lap.

O’Hanlen descended upon him and grabbed him by the lapels of his suit jacket, raising him up.

“Who in the fuck do you think you are?” His face was red as he screamed at Rob, the veins in his neck throbbing, his face was the only thing that seemed to stay still as the man violently shook him. Then he shoved Rob to the floor. Rob scrambled against the tile, trying to escape but he was grabbed again, this time by his hair and his head was wrenched back painfully.

“Come into my house pretending to be a messenger of God-“ he continued. It seemed impossible that his voice could get any louder but it rose in intensity with each word until Rob found himself flinching just from the sound alone. O’Hanlen pulled Rob’s head back and with brute force slammed his head against the side of the sink. White light flashed infront of his eyes and his whole skull reverberated from the impact, his ears ringing and the room spinning. He could feel warm blood trickling down his neck. He hadn’t collected himself before he felt the sharp kick to his ribs and was quickly doubled over, retching from the pain as O’Hanlen swung his leg back and kicked him again in the same spot.

O’Hanlen kneeled over him, gripping him by the neck and holding him up so they were face to face. Rob could smell his putrid breath coming out in hot pants against him, the smell was the only sensation even rivaling the strength of the throbbing pain over his body.

“Who do you work for, shitstain?”

“N-no one, I-“ Rob began to stammer but O’Hanlen punched him in the face, so hard that he saw spots of red in his vision and he whimpered.

“So what? Impersonating a priest is just your idea of a funny joke, you sick fuck?” the grip on his neck tightened until he couldn’t breathe and O’Hanlen was shaking him again, screaming in his face. “WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!”

He pulled Rob forward and then slammed him back again on the floor, the back of his head smacking the tile hard.

“Who is it…? You fucking tell me. You fucking tell me right now before I make you regret you were ever born.”

Rob was already starting to regret it. Especially when O’Halen leaned over him, until the tip of his nose was practically brushing against Rob’s, and he could see the flecks of blue in the man’s wide, green, bloodstained eyes that stayed focused without blinking a few seconds too long to be normal.

“You come here, impersonate a holy father, look through my things… and you won’t even tell me why?” he laughed once, the same musical, hysteric sound as before. “What’s it going to take?”

He picked Rob up by the lapels again before slamming him back down and putting the chokehold of his hand against his throat once more.

“Should I cut you open? Pull your fucking guts out? You can still live like that, y’know. I’ve seen it. You can stay awake while you’re watching your intestines getting ripped out of your own stomach. You want that? Want to see what your own guts look like, father?”

Rob’s fingernails were digging into O’Hanlen’s wrist but he just tightened his grip. He could feel tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes though if they were from the fear or the pain, it was hard to tell.

“I could cut your fingers off one by one. Will you tell me then?” he made an expression of mock sadness, “Even if you tell me now, after what you’ve done I think I’m going to have to take atleast a few of your fingers.”

“Please-“ Rob managed to sputter weakly. O’Hanlen’s fist met with his cheek again and he saw his own blood spatter against the dirty tile from his mouth.

“Or I could just cut off your balls and feed them to you. So what’ll it be? What first?”

“Please- I don’t- Please, don’t-“ Rob sobbed pathetically.

O’Hanlen opened his mouth to shout again but his voice was drowned out by a familiar engine roar that was followed by something close to an explosion- a huge crashing noise. Rob saw it from behind O’Hanlen’s thin frame. Watched in awe as the living room burst into a cloud of sawdust and flying plaster as the motorbike came plowing straight through the wall and into the room.

“What the fuck….?” he whispered incredulously.

“What the **_fuck_**?!” O’Hanlen screamed, whirling around and leaping to his feet.

There were two on the bike- Croc with a helmet covering her face and Nikki on the back, helmetless. O’Hanlen’s jaw had dropped and he looked incredulously from the new hole in his house and then turned back to Rob- in awe and wondering how the cowardly fuck impersonating the priest had somehow indirectly been responsible for this, mouth still hanging open.

Nikki flew off the back of the bike before it even had a chance to brake completely and had closed the distance between herself and O’Hanlen in three long strides, pulling her suit jacket off. She threw the jacket around his head and criss crossed the sleeves over his neck then gave a sharp yank on them- covering his face, choking him, and pulling him backwards toward her effectively in one move. He swayed hard on his feet and after a second hard tug using her whole body strength he’d fallen onto his back. She jumped on top of him, straddling his slender chest and pulled a set of knuckledusters out of her pocket, slipping them on her hand. The daylight from the hole in the wall glinted off the metal knuckles as she raised her fist in the air and brought it down on where his head was- a large spot of crimson stained the suit jacket covering his face and muffled cursing was heard.

It was mesmerizing. O’Hanlen’s body was thrashing about so wildly that he finally bucked Nikki off him. His hands were scrambling to untie the jacket wrapped around his head and his roars of fury were coming out sounding even more deranged and terrifying through the buffer of the fabric.

Rob could hear something faintly just outside the periphery of the narrowed, blurry, reality he was experiencing. It was hard to hear anything when the blood pumping in his ears, his own heartbeat, and his breath still coming out in pants sounded deafening to him. But finally he forced his eyes away from the sight of Nikki giving O’Hanlen a solid kick in the groin and knocking him back on his arse, and turned to see Croc, the helmet off motioning at him with her arms. Her voice sounded distorted and then everything focused at once.

“RUN, you dumb cunt!” she was screaming at him.

The adrenaline kicked in and Rob shot to his feet and dove towards the bike as fast as he could.

“For christ’s sake I was about to leave you for fucking dead!” she muttered but before she could complain more there was a deafening shot fired and she ducked her head, pulling Rob down with her as two bullets whizzed over their heads.

The junkies from the other room had finally sensed from the screaming and the deafening crash of the motorbike and the new hole in their house that something might be wrong and were crawling out of the rubble with shotguns, slowly but surely from the other side of the house.

“I think that’s our cue to get the fuck out of here.” Croc said revving the motorcycle and starting to turn.

Rob grabbed her by the arm. “We can’t! Nikki is still-!”

They both looked to where Nikki was fighting O’Hanlen. He’d managed to rip off her jacket from his face and as they looked on, he dealt a swift blow to her cheek with his fist and she stumbled backwards.

“Well tough luck for her.” Croc said, turning the bike.

“We can’t leave her!”

Croc glowered at Rob and pursed her lips, looking quickly back in forth between Rob’s pleading face, Nikki, and the hole in the wall.

“Hurry up, bitch!” She finally shouted to Nikki.

“You’re not being very helpful!” Nikki screeched from over her shoulder as she punched O’Hanlen in the stomach so hard with her knuckle dusters that blood dribbled form his lips. “This your day off or something?!”

Another round of shotgun pellets flew in their direction and Croc swiftly grabbed Rob by the collar of his shirt and jerked his head down as she pulled the gun from her belt and fired it at the junkies a few times.

A grunt made Rob’s head snap back to Nikki. O’Hanlen had finally gotten the upper hand and Nikki was on her back, his long, freckled fingers wrapped around her throat. Croc wasn’t looking. She was shooting. Rob got off the back of the bike and picked up a chunk of wall that had been splintered by the entrance of the motorcycle. O’Hanlen’s back was to him, he could see sweat dripping down the back of his red, sunburned, neck out of the tight curls of his hair and into the already soiled wifebeater. The image turned his stomach more than the crack that followed as he swung the piece of wall and smashed it over his skull.

The wiry, fierce, body stilled for a moment and then went limp, collapsing on top of Nikki who was gasping for air. Rob pushed O’Hanlen’s motionless body to the side and felt a slight hint of relief to see that his eyes were rolling around lazily in his head and his lips were twitching slightly- signs of life. He grabbed Nikki around her back and pulled her up into his arms, letting her clutch him for a moment and dig her fingernails against his arms as she caught her breath.

“We have to go. We have to go.” he whispered in her ear, saying the words almost like a mantra to still his own nerves at the increasingly loud sounds of gunfire and shouting.

“We can’t go… if you’re holding me so tightly…” Nikki’s voice came out in a squeak and he realized he’d been gripping her much tighter than she’d been holding onto him and he let go, pulling her to her feet.

“Right…” he muttered as she grabbed his wrist and sprinted ahead of him, pulling him towards the bike much faster than he could run on his own. He stumbled but she pushed him onto the back seat. He barely had time to wrap his arms around Croc before the motorcycle was jerking foreward and out of the house. One of Nikki’s arms was wrapped loosely around his waist as she swiveled in her seat, Croc’s handgun now in her hand, and shot at pursuers as they went. Croc wasn’t used to having three people on the bike and was scrunched up against the handlebars but whatever discomfort was masked by the sheer desperation to escape and the bike went forward with great speed even if it did nearly veer into walls a few times.

They went to Nikki’s house and not Croc’s because Nikki’s house was the one with the thicker door with more locks on it and the security cameras.

Rob still felt as if his hands were shaking a bit when they got up to the apartment and sat down. Nikki silently went to the kitchen and poured vodka directly into her mouth for several seconds straight before pausing to take a breath.

She didn’t even move at the crashing and banging sounds of Croc raiding her bathroom when the biker came back with bandages and alcohol swabs. Croc paused in the middle of the room momentarily, her eyes flicking between Nikki who was bent over the sink, staring at the water flow and occasionally taking a handful of it and splashing it on her own face; and Rob who was on the couch staring blankly at the floor boards. She went to Rob first and kneeled between his knees.

“Are you okay? Are you here?” she said, giving his thigh a light squeeze.

He nodded. “M’fine.”

She smiled briefly at him. “You’re kinda not actually. Your face is all banged up.”

“There goes my modeling career.” he muttered glumly. Croc’s gently put her fingertips on his face and turned his head each way, inspecting him carefully.

“No. It’s nothing permanent. Just some scrapes and bruises. Do any of your teeth feel like they’re about to fall out?”

He moved his tongue around his mouth experimentally and shook his head.

“Nah.”

Croc’s face broke into an unprecedented approving grin and she nodded.

“Hey, a run in with O’Hanlen and no missing teeth or permanent injuries? That’s an accomplishment even most hardened thugs can’t claim.”

“Beginner’s luck I’m sure.” Rob said dryly but he didn’t fight the slight smile he felt. Croc was opening up an alcohol swab and dabbing it at the side of his forehead that had been smashed against the sink.

“Well, I don’t know about that, but I wouldn’t try your luck at a second encounter. You shouldn’t stay alone in your apartment until this blows over.” she said, opening a new swab and swiping a rather frightening amount of blood off his cheek.

“Is that your idea of a subtle invitation into your bed or something…?”

“I didn’t intend it to be subtle.” she said, taking her eyes off her work for a moment to raise an eyebrow at him. “And you can stay with Nikki too. She has better shit in her fridge probably.”

“It wouldn’t take much considering all you had was a soda and a box of Ritz Crackers.” he grumbled, “Surprised either of you have anything in your kitchens after all the crap you steal from mine.”

Croc turned and saw Nikki was wandering up behind them. Her shirtsleeves were stained with blood- O’Hanlen’s on the arms and her own spotted down the front. She was holding two glasses of vodka and she put one down on the coffee table, sliding it over to Rob before she leaned back against the wall, taking a sip of her own. She looked every bit the hardened mobster after narrowly escaping a fire fight.

Croc stood up and went over to Nikki, looking at her with possibly even more tenderness than she’d given Rob as she touched the scratch on her cheek where O’Hanlen had hit her.

“Want me to bandage you up too…?”

Nikki shrugged off the touch and gave Croc’s shoulder a light squeeze.

“I can take care of it. It’s nothing brutal. What about you?”

“Fine. Those junkies can’t shoot for shit.” she assured before going back to the bathroom to return the disenfectant and bandages.

“Yo.” Nikki said, jerking her chin up once in Rob’s direction. “You saved my life.”

“I guess I did.” Rob answered, taking a long drink of the vodka in front of him.

“That was pretty cool of you.”

“You both saved me first so…”

“So I guess it’s even then.” Nikki said and a smile turned up the corner of her lips “Cause otherwise we would’ve had to extract a cut out of your pay for having to save you. Now I guess we can call it fair and give you the original amount.”

Rob sighed and downed the rest of the vodka.

 

 


End file.
